Hi guys! For the past… ever, I’ve been putting my health and fitness aside. I tried a few times to get into the habit of exercising to no avail. I’m not overweight or anything but neither am I strong or flexible as I want to be. Mainly because I don’t want to have health troubles later in life. HOWEVER, to get started I needed to google of course and… best 10 xyz, do this, don’t do this, you breathe wrong, you stand wrong, you do everything wrong, this is the only solution. All of these can be found about anything related to fitness. How does one get started with all this nonsense, misinformation and clickable? What’s even real anymore? Thank you in advance :)
I do something I enjoy 4 days a week, Brazilian Jiujitsu. I augment it with something I don’t - strength training once a week for half an hour. One warm up set of 12 reps and one working set of 5-8 reps to complete failure. I use machines to avoid injury from failure. 5 exercises- leg press, chest press, row, lat pulldown and overhead press. It’s a pretty intense workout. My goal is to keep the muscle I have and prevent injury in jiujitsu. I feel like I get like 40% of the weight training benefit for like 20% of the work that I’ve put in before with barbell training (strong lifts, 5/3/1, madcow, etc).
Fit can mean lots of things. What specifically are your goals? Sit down and think about what you really want and be specific. Are there particular sports you want to focus on? Particular fitness goals like be fast, be strong, be muscular, run long distances, etc? Define your specific goals and from there you can create a specific plan to meet those goals. If you have general goals and particular sports you like, it can help to turn your general goals into specific goals in those sports. If you like running and want to work on your endurance, pick a half marathon to train for. Setting specific goals with deadlines helps you define and stick to a specific plan.
If your goal is healthspan, the book Outlive has a great section on planning your exercise for longevity and healthspan:
https://peterattiamd.com/outlive/
Nutrition: eat sufficient protein (more than you think), establish a minimum amount you need based on your lean body mass and activity levels. Use fat and carbohydrates to meet the rest of your caloric goals. Try to avoid “bad carbs” (fructose in sweets and processed foods) and bad fats (trans fats, hydrogenated oils, omega 6 fats from seed oils, again processed foods) but getting enough protein and avoiding excess calories is vastly more important.
Resistance training: this will depend on your specific goals. Hip hinge (squats, deadlifts) and pulling exercises (rows, pullups, deadlifts) are probably the most important. You probably want to plan and periodize your workouts. I am a huge fan of 5-3-1 for strength development. I’ve tried many programs over the years and this is the only one that doesn’t plateau prematurely for me. I do this 2-3 times a week.
https://www.jimwendler.com/blogs/jimwendler-com/101065094-5-3-1-for-a-beginner
Cardio: I break this into high intensity and low intensity. Again, you should tailor this to your goals but generally you want to do 80% of your cardio at low intensity (heart rate zone 2 in the 5 zone mode) and 20% at high intensity (zone 4-5). There are lots of ways to skin this cat depending on what cardio activities you enjoy. I do 1-2x 20 minute high intensity workouts a week and 2-3x hour long low intensity workouts a week.
As others say, start slow. Add one of these changes at a time and give your body a few weeks to adapt before adding another change.
For me, the big thing was to deliberately eat regular meals and cut back on beer. I am already pretty active with the things I like to do and how me and my friends like to roughhouse a lot. With good inputs, I’ve gotten a lot stronger just living the life I want to live and have been even more empowered to be silly and active because my strength and endurance have improved. Virtuous cycle. Also, I finally got a work computer and can walk to work because I don’t need to carry it back and forth.
I have a lot of Himbo tendencies so take with a grain of salt!
Fitness can be a lot of things. Health can be a lot of things. It just really depends on what your goals and needs are.
If there are heart problems rampant in your family tree, you might want to consider strengthening your cardiovascular system through things like running or biking. Give C25K a shot and see how you feel. Maybe do some Maffetone style training after that just to learn to deal with running slowly and consistently.
If you’re worried about brittle bones, arthritis and muscle issues when you age, try some resistance training. Your local gym will definitely have beginner courses available that show you all of the machines in a basic training circuit. Then you just play around with weight amounts and set ranges depending on more granular goals.
If your goal is just aesthetic (also completely valid), it’s probably a diet thing or a combination of cardio/strength training that will get you there.
Generally, I’d say just pick a thing that you reasonably like (don’t expect to love it right away, don’t drop it when you hate it atm) and stick with it until you’ve convinced yourself that you’re a “fitness person”. Just that self perception will be an absolute game changer!
For me personally, just that change in self perception has brought me from “ugh it’s sunday I need to go on a run because my training program wants me to go on a run on sunday” to “oh it’s sunday, time to go on my run cause that is what I do”. No need for convincing, no need for motivation, no need to tax my brains’ go/no go mechanisms.
Diet is really important. Eat light breakfast such as museli, oats etc, lean meat, egg for lunch and dinner. And A little exercise is all you need.
