29 Fitness Lessons from my 29th Birthday

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19 Sept

On September 19th, I celebrated my 29th birthday.

Today, I'm excited to share a short blog post with 29 fitness-specific lessons I've learned.

These points come from my coaching experiences, working with professional sports teams, interacting with thousands of people, coaching clients in-person and online from around the world, soon-to-be authoring a book, and developing my 1-2-1 online fitness business.

Here they are, in no particular order (point number 13 is my favourite):

Gym etiquette: Avoid working out directly in front of or on the dumbbell rack. Take a step or two back from the rack, and then start your exercise.
If being fit and healthy was easy, everyone would be doing it—but they aren’t. So the fact you’re having a tough time with it is a good thing—it shows you’re trying.
If you keep missing workouts because you’re low on energy, you won’t realise that working out is what actually gives you the energy you need.
The belief that lifting weights at a young age stunts growth is a myth. Strength training with good form is one of the best things anyone can do—regardless of age.
You don’t feel tired and weak just because you're older. You feel tired and weak because of years of poor health habits compounding and catching up to you.
Fad diets are generally just clever marketing around the basic principle of a calorie deficit.
Often, when you think you’ve “messed up” your diet, it’s never as bad as you think. The issue is that you're now completely derailing because you think you messed up. And that’s where the issue arises.
Taking fat burner pills but never changing your diet is like shitting your pants and changing your shirt.
If “getting back on track” with your fitness means you resort to mainly eating chicken and broccoli and then cutting out all carbs, you have a skewed understanding of what needs doing for fitness progress.
If your goal is fat loss and you start a diet with a name, then chances are it's not a good idea.
Going zero-carb for fat loss isn’t the badge of honour you think it is.
The fact that you can't pronounce an ingredient on a food label doesn't make it toxic.
Fitness becomes much more enjoyable when you shift to exercising out of love for your body and appreciating what it can do instead of punishing it out of hate.
I've always looked at putting the weights away as part of the workout. If you don’t put your weights away and leave them there for the next person to tidy up, then aside from being a knob, you also didn’t finish your workout.
Sleep schedules impact body fat levels more than you might realise.
Calorie tracking usually feels painful and off-putting when you’re about to eat or drink something that will make fat loss more challenging.
Trying to build muscle while paying zero attention to your protein intake makes your journey much more challenging. Think of muscle as a building. Think of protein as the blocks to help build. Building muscle with minimal protein is like building a house without the tools.
Constantly comparing your fitness progress to other people online is a disease that will rot your soul.
Not feeling motivated to go to the gym today shows that you really must go today.
You can still lose body fat while spiking your insulin.
A calorie deficit isn’t another diet—it’s the fundamental principle behind weight loss.
If you're concerned about others' opinions of you, you might want to focus on improving your barbell squat.
Making up your workouts as you go along is something you’ll get away with when you’re new to working out because of the “newbie gains” you’ll experience. However, there will come a certain point where you need structure.
Be cautious about missing your workouts. Before you realise it, six months pass by without a single gym session.
Worrying about how many calories you burn during workouts doesn't help you. In fact, I've noticed that it often distracts from the important things, such as whether you lifted more weight, did more reps, or held a plank longer. Worrying about calories burned is like obsessing over the number of words you typed instead of what you wrote.
If you put in 35% effort, don’t be frustrated, upset or confused when you see 35% results.
Your fitness goals get easier when you don't let the number on a scale dictate your emotions and actions for the day.
Sometimes the best workouts happen on days you least feel like exercising.
You don't need another course, podcast, book, video, or seminar to better understand your fitness goals. What's crucial is putting into practice what you've learned. The mistakes you’ll make along the way will teach you infinitely more. The effectiveness of any plan depends on consistent action.