What’s Even More Important than Sleep, Diet, and Exercise?

Here’s a little secret: you can get the best advice on sleep, diet, and exercise, from the world’s best fitness professionals, but if you’re missing a crucial ingredient, you won’t get the results you want.

What’s the secret ingredient?

To answer that question, let me tell you a story about my own training (or lack thereof, as you’ll see).

I’m lucky in that I have an awesome coach: Zach Moore, who’s the afternoon coach at IFAST. He writes great programs for me, as he’s very knowledgeable about fitness and programming. He also helps me with my nutrition planning, too.

And yet, last month was a terrible one for me in terms of training. I was traveling a lot (woohoo 4-day-long bachelor party in New Orleans!), I wasn’t sleeping enough, and my workouts were taking way too long.

I was missing workouts way too often — like 50% of the time! And even when I trained, I felt like a zombie afterward, rather than feeling refreshed and energized.

I really wanted my workouts to make my life better, but instead, they were making me feel stressed out (because they were long and difficult) and guilty (because I was not doing them consistently).

So at the end of the month, Zach and I came up with a plan to make my workouts better. The plan was simple:

• Keep the workouts under 45 minutes.This way, I don’t stress out about spending 2 hours at the gym, and I’ll feel like I can train even on busy days.
• Make them fun. Do things I like to do, like deadlifts and chin-ups.
• Make consistency a top priority. My goal for this month is not to bench press 2973 pounds, or gain 43 pounds of muscle, or look shredded. My top goal is simply to work out 3 days a week, every week.

This month, my workouts are going great! I’ve trained 3 days a week, every week. I’m pleasantly sore after my workouts, and I feel eager to get back to the gym, instead of dreading each training session. I feel happier and healthier, and I’m definitely making progress now.

I hope you can see what I’m getting at: the best program in the world doesn’t really accomplish anything by itself, unless you execute it with great consistency!

Honestly, I would much rather have my clients stick to a mediocre program with 100% dedication, than have them stick 50% to the best program in the world.

Luckily, at IFAST, we don’t have to make any tradeoffs between great programs and great consistency, since we write awesome programs (if I may say so) that are custom-tailored to your needs. Since we’ve already taken care of the programming, all we have to do is help you become more consistent. Did I mention that it’s awesome having a coach who will help you with accountability, consistency, and motivation?

So great programs + great consistency is a recipe for fantastic success, whether your goal is to lose fat or to destroy your opponents at your sport.

If you’re new to IFAST, please call us a 317-578-0998 to find out how we can make great programs + great consistency work for you. And if you’re already a current member, and you’re struggling with consistency, please let us know how we can help you out! That’s what Zach and I are here for!