Starting Fitness: Simple Steps for Better Results

To start working out, one must prioritize and commit, keep it simple, focus on process, environment, and intrinsic motivation for long-term success.

### Honest Advice for Starting and Succeeding in Fitness
* 💡 "Make a decision and make it a priority." Placing importance on fitness and making it a part of your life is crucial, as the **more importance you place on it, the more likely you are to do it**.
* 🎯 Giving yourself a reason that drives you to **overcome the initial challenges** is essential, as when you first start working out, it may not be as **enjoyable**.
* 🏃 Find a reason that is true to you and that you care about. For example, **wanting to achieve a specific physical goal**, **seeing changes in your body**, or **feeling stronger**.
* 🏋 Keep it simple by focusing on **working out hard** and **eating in alignment with your goals**. Most of the other things marketed by the fitness industry are **unnecessary**.
* ⏰ Understand that the habit of working out and consistency is more important than the specifics of your workout. It's about **making small changes and learning along the way**.
* 🍽 When it comes to diet, make gradual changes and eat foods that are "**more bang for your buck**." For example, replacing calorie-dense unhealthy foods with healthier alternatives.
* 🧠 Focus on the progress you're making day by day and try to have a competition with your past self. The key is to be **patient, as results don't happen overnight**.
* 🌱 The ultimate goal is to make fitness a part of your life and something you **enjoy**. To achieve this, focus on your **environment**, start **small**, and find a way to **intrinsically enjoy the process**.

so if I had to go back in time till before I even started working out, I'd find a less athletic version of myself. But knowing what I know now, I would focus on these things to get started, to keep it simple and focus on the things that really matter, and then also just refining that process to get the results. And if I would have just done that, I would have got stronger way faster. So anyways, this is just the honest advice I'd give to anybody who's looking to start working out or start getting into it. Let's get into it, and the first thing I would say is to make a decision and make it a priority. We really only have so much time and energy throughout the day, and if you don't place any importance or focus on your goal, it's going to be pushed to the side as you're going to fill that space with other things. And wherever we place our energy and effort, we're going to improve. Although the average person has a lot of things that they care about, but just

placing some importance on Fitness and making it a part of your life is key. Because the more importance you place on it, the more you're going to do it. And of course, it has all these benefits and stuff. But I've never once seen someone say, I'm getting healthier, and work out for that reason alone. I mean, some people love that stuff, but it doesn't motivate me. So giving yourself a reason to drive past some of the challenges that are going to come up is, in my opinion, most people never give themselves a reason that drives them and motivates them to get past these initial stages. Because when you first start working out, it's not as fun as when you're get into it and you start to enjoy the process itself. So to get over that initial uncomfortable stage, you have to have a reason and something that drives you to get past it. If you just think about it, why would you do something that's not fun all the time, that takes effort, if you don't really care about it.

you have to give yourself a reason to care, and that's why goals and reasons are so important because they give you that initial drive and energy to go after it. Just speaking from own experience, the things that helped me take that initial action were: one, I wanted to get my first dunk. I was a basketball player, and I really wanted to dunk, and I knew I had to get in the weight room for that. I also wanted to see some muscles on my body for the first time, and I also kind of felt a little bit weak at that moment in my life, and I kind of didn't like that feeling. I kind of wanted to change it. That's all it took for me to get that initial energy to just go for it, and I think that's different for everybody. You got to find a reason that's true to you, true to what you want, and something that you care about. At least it's helped me, and just having those reasons that I mentioned before, I was able to take action, and I went to the basement of the

YMCA where the weight room was, and I was like, I'm going for this long hallway you got to go through to get there, and there's flickering fluorescent lights. It was actually like straight out of a horror movie. I thought some chick was going to walk like this backwards towards me, you know, with the neck going like this. Fortunately, that didn't happen, and I was a little hesitant to go, but I kept walking down the hallway, and walking past me came this giant Jamaican dude. To this day, he was one of the biggest dudes I've ever seen, and he had those lats that went like this, and you know you can't put the arms down. I was just walking past him like this, and he was actually really nice, and he even pointed me in the direction of the gym. He was like, Oh, you need to go over there, man. It's a terrible Jamaican accent, but you get the point. He was really nice, and most people at the gym are super nice. So if you are feeling anxious or any of

that just go for it. Like, if once you're in there, you're going to get more comfortable, and eventually, all that stuff's just going to go away as you realize that they're focusing on their own workouts and all that, and they don't really care. It's just one small decision like to go to the gym, but it has such a big ripple effect, you know. You go there once, and if you just keep coming back slowly, you start to find yourself more comfortable in that environment, and then you start, you know, trying new things, trying new workouts, having more fun with it. You start to see progress, and once you see progress, then you really start to find joy for it, and just having that initial courage to take that first jump and that first decision of I'm going to do this is really important. I understand a lot of people hate this, and they hate mindset stuff. They just want to be like, Oh, just tell me what works, which I'll talk more about how you can integrate it into your life.

later, but just having that commitment to yourself that this is what you do and going for it. I think is huge. And once you're starting to make a change and you're doing something a little different, you just want to keep it simple, although it gets overcomplicated because of the fitness industry. It's really simple. It really boils down to two things: working out hard and then eating in alignment with your goals, although that's easier said than done and I still struggle with the diet thing sometimes. The other day, I ate yogurt for the entire day, for the whole day. So the real goal here is to get ourselves to meet those two requirements. And on top of that, the fitness industry is going to sell you all these things: routines, supplements, the 30-day belly fat shredding Extravaganza, my ebook, but most of it is just extra stuff you don't really need. You got to work out hard, eat in alignment with your goals. You can get better looking than 95% of the population if you just took a

boulder and started chucking it up and down. Yeah, that being said, like some structure is nice. I'd say an upper-lower split is great if you're starting out. It just breaks it up nicely, and I'll link some routines below for free. It just gives you something to see and be like, Okay, I'm going to do this, this, and this. If you just work at it, you're going to see progress and results. Fitness is awesome because you get what you put into it, and the effort that you give gets rewarded at the end. And I know I said like, Go for it and all that, but a lot of people, when they jump into the training, they try to do it all at once. They say, You know, I'm turning over a new leaf, and then they just start going crazy in the gym, which I'm all for. Like, I love a good workout, but then they wake up the next morning and they can't move. And just understanding that the habit of working out and consistency is more important than what you're doing for the

workout if you're just coming back every single day, and then making small tweaks and changes, and learning, you're going to get jacked eventually. So just do that. It doesn't have to be perfect, but you got to execute on it. As for your diet, that also doesn't have to be perfect, but it can't be horrendous, otherwise it's going to, as they say, kill your gains. I experienced this firsthand in college when my diet was dino nuggets, bagels, and beer. Although I was kind of living the life with that diet, it was not supporting my training. And the moment I started to make little changes to my diet, I started to see an instant impact on my results. I completely chopped down, and then I was able to even do some cooler dunks, such I had never thought would be possible, like the windmill and stuff. But when I made that change of my diet, I didn't do it all at once. It's the same as working out. You can't just flip over a new leaf and be a completely new

person who has a Perfect Clean Diet. It doesn't work like that. You want to make one change at a time and make eating healthy as easy as possible. First, I eliminated the beer. Then I eliminated the bagels. And eventually, I even eliminated the dino nuggets. Which of those three if I was going to do the kill Mary thing? I'm marrying dino nuggets any day. So that was a tough one to kick. As for your diet, you just need to eat a proper amount of protein and then eat in alignment with your goals, whether it's a calorie deficit, or calorie surplus, or maintenance. We all have a certain amount of maintenance calories to maintain our weight. And if we want to lose weight, then we have to eat less than that maintenance level. The hard thing is to do that. One way I like to do is push my meals off to the end of the day. You know, they say breakfast is the most important meal of the day, but that was actually lies told to us by advertisers in the mid-20th century.

cereal companies wanted us to eat breakfast, so they said breakfast is the most important meal of the day. You also just want to eat foods that are more bang for your buck. For example, instead of eating ice cream, eat Greek yogurt. You can eat three tubs of Greek yogurt for one tub of ice cream. It's kind of insane. It's 300 calories versus 1,000 calories. If you're trying to gain weight, eat that calorie-dense stuff. Also, eat your breakfast. It's the most important meal of the day. Trying to get calories in here, people shove it down your throat, even if you feel like throwing up. That was my mindset about it. I was like, Oh, I have such a small appetite. I can't eat, you know, eat that much. But you know, you just start shoving it down your face. I really try to when I was a freshman in college, and I had that unlimited meal plan. I would just shove my face full of food. At a certain point, it does get a little bit

uncomfortable because you're you don't want to eat, but you just keep eating, you know, whatever it takes, and you might lose your six-pack a little bit. Some people say a skinny six-pack doesn't count, but I mean it's a six-pack. I count it. Although I would say that if you do lose that six-pack for a little bit and then cut down, the six-pack is going to be way better and way look way cooler in that situation. You just have to have faith that you're going to get it back and believe in yourself. I would be careful because some people become forever bulkers, and they just continue to bulk forever, but that's going to make it harder to do calisthenic skills, and you want to just chisel away so you can see the rocks beneath, as my two cents at least. As they say, the body's a temple. As for supplements, the only ones I ever took were creatine monohydrate, and I drank some protein powder. Both of these aren't

necessary, but they can be helpful. Of course, if you train better and especially eat better than I did, you'd see results way faster. But it took me like 3 years to get a body I was really proud of. Like I said, we want to make this a long-term habit because at the end of the day, you really have to be patient. You can have the most perfect workout routine and have a perfect diet and still not see results for a while. And as I went on, the thing that was motivating me the most was the progress that I was seeing. So if you can just focus on how you're improving day-to-day and kind of have a competition with your past self, you'll start to be proud of the progress you're making. And it's going to allow you to be patient and wait for those long-term results that you're looking for 'cause it doesn't happen overnight. But by slowly improving the choices that we're making, we can start to see some pretty cool results. So you decide to take the jump.

then you keep it simple and focus on the things that matter, and that are going to bring the results. And once we're there, we want to focus on the process and trying to make it maintainable and enjoyable. Honestly, I wish they focused more on like psychology and behavior change in Fitness. Everything else is pretty much stupid and a waste of time. And I'd include my own stuff in that as well. Well, I shouldn't say that because it does help you get structured and helps you know like what to do, but I think way too much Focus gets put on like the workouts that you do. I don't think it matters that much. It probably it's like probably 30% of the problem, but if you look at the person average dude on the street, their problem isn't what they're doing for the workout. It's that they can't get themselves to take action, action, or they don't want to take the action. And if they were to just focus more on their behaviors, their daily actions, and how they can change.

those little things. They'd see way more results. And the main goal is to just make it a part of our life and make it something enjoyable that we look forward to in our daily routine. That's the end goal. Is to just work out cuz you intrinsically like to do it. To do that, we need to make it a habit. So, as you make a commitment, you make friends with you're making people. And then you're starting to do your workout routine. And you're keeping it simple, focusing on the things that matter. The next step is to make it a part of your life and make that process smooth. And the first thing you can do is environment. If you have junk food in your fridge, you're probably going to eat it. At least I would. I'd go crazy on it because it's in my fridge. And at the end of the day, we only have so much willpower, you know. We have a little ball of willpower. And as the day goes on, we get plucked at by the end of

the day we have no willpower, we fall to our habit and whatever is around us. So, whatever is in that fridge, whether it's healthy or unhealthy, you fall to it and you eat it, and your environment goes all the way up until Fitness. You could have your goal placed in a place where you see it every day. You know, the whole placing your outfit out in the beginning of your day and then starting small and focusing at one thing at a time. I've kind of mentioned this before, but trying to do it all at once, not the best idea. You just want to slowly make changes that are going to help you improve. So, what one thing that you can change right now that will have a massive benefit for you later? And lastly, try to find a way to enjoy it. I believe it takes a little bit of effort to get to that point, but if you can get to the spot where it's the thing that you actually want to do, having that intrinsic Drive is going to be a lasting form of motivation. And then

once you do get to your goals, you're not going to be all sad or say, Oh, is this it? because you worked out for you and you're doing what you wanted to do. I guess what I'm saying is find that thing that you enjoy and make sure it's true to you and something that you really want. That way you go after it even when times get a little bit more difficult. And if you can get yourself to improve your choices that you make and make it a part of your life, find a way to enjoy that process. That's where the real progress, the real improvement comes from. At least, that's my opinion. If you like what I had to say and you're looking to improve your face, here's a video for it right there.

My honest advice for someone looking to get in shape

Colin Murray

Prioritizing Fitness: Simple Yet Effective Tips for Getting Started

Making fitness a priority is crucial, as it requires time and energy.

Setting clear goals and reasons is important for staying motivated through the initial stages of working out.

Personal reasons, such as wanting to achieve a specific athletic goal or simply feeling better, can provide the drive and energy needed to take action and stay committed to a fitness routine.

Overcoming Gym Anxiety and Finding Success

Entering the gym can be intimidating, but most people are friendly and supportive, allowing for a comfortable environment to focus on personal workouts.

Taking the first step into the gym can lead to increased comfort, the courage to try new things, and ultimately, finding joy and progress in fitness.

The key to success lies in the simple combination of intense workouts and eating according to one's goals, despite the unnecessary complexities often promoted by the fitness industry.

Starting Out with Fitness: Tips for Success

Starting with an upper-lower split is recommended for beginners, providing structure and guidance.

Consistency in working out and making small, sustainable changes in diet is emphasized over trying to be perfect from the start.

When it comes to diet, focusing on protein intake and aligning with personal goals, whether it's a calorie deficit, surplus, or maintenance, is key for success.

The Importance of Breakfast and Patience in Body Transformation

Breakfast is promoted as the most important meal of the day by cereal companies to encourage consumption.

Shifting from calorie-dense foods to more nutritious options like Greek yogurt is recommended for weight management.

Patience is key in body transformation, as progress takes time and consistent effort, leading to long-term results.

Simplifying the Fitness Journey: Focusing on Behavior Change

The key to fitness success is focusing on behavior change and making it a habit.

The workout routine is important, but the main challenge for most people is taking action and changing their daily behaviors.

Creating a supportive environment, rather than relying solely on willpower, is crucial for making fitness a sustainable and enjoyable part of life.

Building Willpower and Achieving Your Goals

Willpower is crucial for making positive choices, especially when it comes to food and fitness.

Instead of trying to change everything at once, focus on making small, impactful changes.

Find one thing to change now that will benefit you in the future, and make sure to find a way to enjoy the process.

Ultimately, the key to real progress and improvement is to find something you truly enjoy and make it a part of your life.