4 Beginner Fitness Mistakes You Might Be Making

In general, I make a lot of mistakes.

Too be honest, when it comes to my health and fitness I have screwed up in more ways than I care to admit over the years!

But since the day I finally decided to be serious about my health, and made it my mission to transform myself into a real life superhero, it has been my mission to help my fellow geeks and nerds (and muggles too!) find the easiest ways to get fit and healthy, without having to deal with all the obstacles I ran into.

So don’t worry.

I’ve made all of the fitness mistakes so you don’t have to!

Today I wanted to identify some of the biggest problems that beginners make when trying to lose weight and get healthy, and provide you with specific advice on how to avoid them.

As you can imagine, this is a pretty huge topic; so we are going to focus on some of the most common fitness mistakes this time around.

If you want to dig even deeper you can always sign up for the Jerd Herd email list, where I send you a completely free eBook I wrote with 7 more fitness mistakes and obstacles (and solutions!)

Are you ready to dive in?

Magic Pills

“You take the blue pill, the story ends. You wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill, you stay in wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.” – Morpheus, The Matrix

The Problem: Probably the most common of all the beginner fitness mistakes. We all want to believe there is a silver bullet, a panacea that cures all that ails, but the reality is unfortunately less magical than that.

We first need to realize that weight loss and fitness is big business. People stand to profit heavily from your desires to find a quick, transformative fix that leaves you with the body of your dreams with little to no effort on your part.

In fact “profit heavily” might be a bit of an understatement; last year the global weight loss market alone was estimated to be a $583 billion dollar industry.

583 billion dollars!

Not only is that crazy on so many levels, but it reinforces that people not only want to get fit and healthy, but that they are willing to go to very expensive lengths if it means they can get there as fast as possible.

The concept of a magic cure that will quickly burn fat, build muscle, and sculpt your body just the way you want it might sound awesome, but they just don’t work.

Especially not as a long-term, sustainable life change.

The Solution:  You have to accept that real changes are directly proportional to the effort you put in.

Remember, it more than likely took  years and years to get to where you are now!

If you’re overweight, I can pretty much guarantee it didn’t happen overnight; that’s the culmination of months, and years, of all sorts of different circumstances and errors in judgements all taking hold.

If you’re super skinny, I can tell you that you aren’t going to change that by just eating a few high protein meals and lifting weights for a few weeks either! Your body is has been operating at the same metabolic rate for years, and your muscles have grown accustomed to not being stressed to the point of needing to grow.

This is going to take some hard-work and dedication!

If it was a group of compounding factors, over a period of time, that got you where you are going to have to accept that it is going to take a group of factors compounded over time to make a noticeable change.

Introducing one cool new 10 minute workout, a piece of fitness equipment you saw on an infomercial or the latest fat-burning pill you saw on daytime TV isn’t going to cut it.

You have to change your exercise, your diet, and most importantly your habits!

It’s going to require at least a few months of dedicated work to really start seeing positive changes, but you can get where you want to be.

It can be done. I promise you.

Just work on developing your willpower, and then take it one decision, one meal, and one workout at a time.

Squirrel Syndrome

Oh look, a shiny object!

The Problem: Tell me, do any of these sound at all familiar?

• “Oh look! This diet is based on how the cavemen ate.” (No, it isn’t.)
• “Oh look! This workout promotes muscle confusion.” (It doesn’t matter.)
• “Oh look! This is the official Russian Special Forces workout.” (No, it really isn’t.)

If you’ve said things more than one of these things before, then you may have the attention span of a squirrel; constantly chasing the next new “magic pill” fad we just talked about.

Jumping back and forth between the latest workout plans, the newest class or fitness DVDs, and the most recent fad diets every few weeks wondering why you don’t see immediate results (and possibly beating yourself over your perceived “failure”.)

The Solution: Want to know the one thing that the stars of all great success stories have in common? Perseverance. Plain old, stubborn persistence.

I get it, getting in shape can be a little boring (an obstacle we will tackle a little later on); it’s really nothing but proper diet and exercise. That’s the reason there is so much marketing out there constantly bombarding you with the latest and greatest, next big thing.

You just have to remind yourself that these products and programs aren’t being sold to help you get healthy – they’re sold to help someone else get rich.

Don’t fall victim to this classic beginner fitness mistake; don’t get constantly distracted by the new shiny object being dangled in front of you, no matter how enticing the buzz-words may be.

Just pick a simple program and stick to it for a few months.

The Anti-Bulker Movement

This little exchange from my favorite show, The Office, is one I hear all too often; from men and women alike…

Jim – What is that, like… five pounds?
Michael – It’s uh… two and a half. I’m not going for bulk, I’m going for tone.

The Problem: To be blunt, the statements “I don’t want to lift weights, because I don’t want to get too bulky” and “I just want to get toned” are nonsense.

You can spend all the time you want on the elliptical, doing side bends and situps, and actively avoiding any weight over 10lbs all you want. At the end of the day though, you are (at best) just going to end up “skinny-fat“. I know that the fitness magazines you read, and the friends on Facebook always parroting their articles, keep telling you that lifting weights makes you bulky and that you should do a ton of repetitions with little to no weight to “tone up” instead.

Want to hear a secret though? “Toned” is a made-up marketing term specifically targeted at women. It doesn’t mean a $#@%! thing!

For the last time, you won’t get bulky from just lifting weights! Putting on large amounts of muscle requires eating a serious caloric surplus (eating more than you burn) and since I know you all have already put in the work to figure out how many calories you should be eating there is no danger of any sort of magical “em-biggening” happening to you.

Want to hear a second secret? That “toned” look you are after? You get that from heavy weight training with low repetitions.

The Solution: You want your clothes to fit better and look good naked? Start a strength training regimen and clean up your diet.

It really is that simple.

I understand this is probably the exact opposite of what you have heard time and time again, but trust me… this is the smartest and most efficient path to the results you want.

Tight, dense, compact muscle comes from proper strength training. Not only does lifting heavy weights and eating healthy burn a ton of calories, but if you do it consistently you’ll soon get rid of all the fat on top of your muscles too!

Don’t believe me?

Take a before photo, follow a strength training regimen for one month and then take an after photo. You will feel great, your pants will fit better and when you look at that photo you will realize I am right.

“This Is No Fun!”

I saved the hardest one for last…

The Problem: This is a tough one. Sooooo many people have convinced themselves that there is no way working out can be fun or engaging; I understand where this mindset comes from, but I promise you it’s possible!

To a lot of people, the phrase “getting in shape” conjures up visions of running endless miles on a treadmill, feeling out-of-place and clueless about all the machines in the gym, and eating nothing but salads. Assuming that you are going to dislike everything about proper diet and exercise associates the process with “no fun.”

It’s this mindset that will stop your fitness goals in their tracks!

And once this mindset takes root, it’s becomes all too easy to rationalize giving up on your goals by telling yourself “I hate exercising, I’m sore and miserable and I just want a pizza”.

The Solution: Life is short, so why would you subject yourself to activities you hate? That’s crazy talk and makes zero sense! For instance, I hate running. In fact, I abhor it with an unbridled passion.

So guess what?

I don’t do it! (In fact, I don’t even write about it… I usually get someone else to do that for me)

But I love strength training, martial arts, gymnastics and stunt work, paintball, and going for nature hikes. So those are the things I do.

I do the things I like.

If you don’t enjoy a particular type of exercise or food, think outside the box and pick something else instead.

Remember to think about your life like a game; it is supposed to be fun! Here are a few ways to turn your nerdy passions into fitness activities and some tasty and healthy recipes, but remember:

• If you don’t like running, find another way to get your heart rate up.
• If you don’t like working out in gyms, work out at home.
• If you don’t like certain foods, find nutritionally similar substitutes!

Just find clean and healthy foods you enjoy, and fun activities that get your heart racing… and then partake in them!

Want 7 More Mistakes to Avoid?!?

Of course you do.

I’ve included SEVEN more fitness mistakes to avoid into an awesome eBook – “The Top 7 Fitness Obstacles Newbies Face (and the supervillains that cause them)”

It’s available for free as a download for anybody who joins the Jerd Herd email list. That’s right, I said “free.”

It’s hard to argue with that!

Also, along with this free eBook, subscribers also get our weekly articles sent directly to their inboxes AND we occasionally send out exclusive content, and offers, as my way for saying thanks for joining.

If you’re interested in the free eBook (and of course you are, who wouldn’t be?), simply click this link or add your details before the comments below.

After you sign up for the list, be sure to let us know in the comments below what’s the biggest obstacle YOU face!

(Photo #2 credit,Photo #5 credit)

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