Seriously, These 3 Reasons Are Why You're Not Reaching Your Fitness Goals

At the beginning of the year I ran some numbers at my local gym out of curiosity. For the previous year (2015) I wanted to see how many members came to the gym on a regular basis. Knowing people generally suck at consistently working out, I wasn’t expecting any huge numbers. When I ran the numbers though, I was taken aback.

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The Mindset

Why am I not seeing results?

What am i doing wrong?

Nothing I do works

These are things I hear frequently as a trainer, and it's unnerving. Not because I don't understand their plight, but mainly because I believe most people are not honest with themselves.

You know why you’re not seeing results, you just don’t want to admit you’re not doing what it takes to actually see results.

I don't care how truthful you are, the person you're most likely to lie to is yourself. It's just a natural defense mechanism and it’s super easy. Psychologists call it self-deception, or more particularly repression, which is basically conveniently overlooking your shortcomings so as to not hurt your self worth. We all do it to some extent.

Nobody is going to call you out when you tell yourself you did everything possible to get six pack abs. As long as you can convince yourself that it’s not your fault, your self confidence won't take a hit and you can go about your day.

I see and hear it regularly. “Why haven’t I lost any weight? I’m doing everything possible.”

Really? How many times did you come to the gym last week? How many calories have you cut from your daily diet? Did you refuse to eat those doughnuts Jane brought to the office last week? What kind of extra activities are you doing during the day to increase your total calorie expenditure?

Typically these questions are answered without any sure certainty. So no, you didn’t do everything possible to lose weight. You did the minimum amount you thought would give you results, now you’re mad it didn’t work, so you’re blaming everything but yourself.

This is a terrible mindset to have when it comes to exercise because it leads to either quitting exercise altogether, or going round and round on the hamster wheel of mediocrity, which probably 95% of people in your typical gym are doing right now.

So why don't most people see the results they desire? In my experiences it boils down to three main factors:

1. Consistency

2. Intensity

3. Progression

These three factors will pretty much determine if you reach your fitness goals or not. Part 1 of this blog series is aimed at consistency:

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Consistency

The table below displays the results from my test discussed in the opening paragraph:

A few caveats:

1. All I did was take the total number of days out of the year that it would take to achieve each weekly average, and counted how many people in the gym checked in that many times throughout the year. Pretty simple, but effective enough for these purposes. Also, this particular gym has roughly 500 members so keep that in mind.

2. Remember we’re talking about consistency here, which is why I used an entire year. Being consistent for 3 months, then slacking off for 2 is not consistent. The numbers would’ve been much higher if I measured a single month, or even 6 months, but getting in shape is a long process.

3. Since I took total number of visits throughout the year, it’s still not a great measure for actual consistency. Someone theoretically could’ve worked out 260 days in a row, then not once for the rest of the 105 days of the year, and they would’ve made the 5 days/wk average, although I wouldn’t really consider that consistent for the entire year. Regardless, using this method gives the member the benefit of the doubt….and it didn’t seem to help much.

The Results

5 days/wk I admit is a lofty goal, even for fitness professionals, but I figured there were a few gym rats who could obtain that. Nope, not a single person averaged 5 days a week for the entire year.

“No big deal,” I figured “I probably didn’t even achieve that. Plus you really don’t need to exercise 5 days/wk to get in good shape. 4 days/wk is much more reasonable, and is what most people want to strive for.” Want being the key word here.

5 people achieved 4 days/wk. That’s a paltry 1% of the gym.

“Still” I admit, “4 days/wk is a lot for busy people, I’ll hold my judgement for 3 days/wk.”

19 people. Only 3.8% of the gym even achieved the recommended dose of exercise to be considered healthy, according to the American Heart Association . (* that’s assuming they exercised at moderate intensity for 50 min. each time)

2 days/wk was a little better at 59 people, or 11.8% of the gym, but they would have to workout for 75 minutes each session, PLUS do some form of strength workout to even reach AHA recommendations to be considered healthy, let alone fit, which I’m positive not all 59 people accomplished.

Sure there are some assumptions being made here, and some outliers not being accounted for in this very unscientific study. For instance, people exercising outside of the gym. Also, some members not being members for the entire year. But I think it paints a good enough picture. Regardless, the really shocking number hasn’t even been discussed yet.

All of these numbers take on a whole new meaning when we skip down to the last number on the table. The number 0. That’s right, 155 people, or nearly one-third of the members, never stepped foot into the gym the entire year. That’s more than the other four groups combined. (remember that the 147 people who attended 1 day/wk includes all of the 2, 3, & 4 day/wk people too). These people paid $60/month and did not exercise even once. More people opted to flush $720 down the toilet last year to do nothing, than to workout even ONCE A WEEK!

It’s like they’re paying to be out of shape. You can do that for free, why pay?

You may be thinking, well this is just one tiny gym in one city, you can’t make any conclusions based on such anecdotal evidence. In that regard I would agree, until you understand how the gym industry works.

Gyms hate consistent people

Gyms actually DO NOT want you to go to the gym. That’s right, the business whose sole purpose is to provide you with a place to workout, and guide you to a new healthy lifestyle, would rather you stay at home and eat Cheetos

Why?

It’s plainly obvious when you think about it, but most gyms cannot accommodate their full membership. Same reason airlines book more passengers than can fit in their planes, because they know some will cancel and/or won’t show up. In the case of gyms, most won’t show up, and their business model depends on it. Even if they could accommodate everyone, they would rather not, considering that’s more mileage on their extremely expensive equipment.

If you’re a consistent gym-goer though, this is actually a good thing. It drives down membership dues because the gym can make plenty of profit by overselling memberships, knowing less than half will actually show up. This allows them to charge less and lure in those non regular gym-goers, where the ROI (return on investment) is much higher.

In the case of my gym, they collected roughly $111,600 last year from people who never utilized their equipment once! That doesn’t even count the initiation and application fees. Quite a business model eh?

Why are you not consistent

So the question is, why are gyms winning big by betting that you’re a lazy slob? National obesity statistics would tell us because you indeed are a lazy slob. But that doesn’t have to be the case.

Consistency boils down to two things, accountability and desire. Unless you have very good willpower and can hold yourself accountable, which very few people do, you need someone or something to hold you accountable. It’s too easy to make excuses when you have only yourself to answer to. Remember self-deception?

As far as desire, well goals are only as achievable as your will to achieve them is. If your desire to be fit doesn’t rank above your desire to stay at home and binge watch Game of Thrones, then guess what? Game of Thrones will win out every time, and you will continue to flush $60/month down the toilet.

As a trainer, I’m actually OK with this…..on one condition, that you’re willing to admit watching Game of Thrones is higher on your priority list than being fit. There’s nothing worse than hearing someone complain about their weight or lack of fitness, then they cancel every other workout session to go to lunch with their friends or whatnot. I have clients that will readily admit they don’t want to sacrifice their social life for the sake of being fit or losing weight, and that’s perfectly fine with me. If they’re happy with their life who am I to say otherwise? They still come in and exercise occasionally.

The worst person in the world though is the one who constantly complains about being unfit or overweight, then when told how to not be unfit and overweight they say, “Oh, well I’m not doing all that”. Ok then, continue to be unfit and overweight, no problem, just SHUT UP ABOUT IT!

How to be consistent

So how in the world do you become a consistent exerciser when every prior attempt has failed?

You could take the typical approach, where you tell yourself really, really hard that this time it’s going to be different, and this time you’re really going to make an effort to go to the gym 3-4 days a week. You may even go out and buy a gym membership, or better yet buy that fancy piece of fitness equipment you saw on some infomercial that’s supposed to “get you in shape with only 15 minutes a day!”.

These are the typical New Years resolutioners. The ones that are binge watching Game of Thrones by February and haven’t realized yet that what they really bought on QVC was a $2,000 clothes hanger.

Or you could use legitimate evidence-based strategies to change your behavior. At the end of the day, being a consistent exerciser has very little to do with anything exercise related. It’s mostly about behavior modification and psychology. When the new year hits and you’re sitting at your computer scouring the internet for how to get fit and lose weight, what you should really be doing is searching for how to stick with and achieve goals.

You can have the best workout regiment in the world, but if you don’t actually do it then it’s a bad workout regiment.

Set Goals

A study done by Dr. Gail Matthews of Dominican University showed that these key steps greatly increase one’s chance of achieving their goals:

1. Writing down your goals

2. Setting actionable steps to achieving said goals

3. Having someone other than yourself hold you accountable

In her study, 76 % of participants who did all of the above completed their goals, compared to 43% of people who were asked to deeply “think about their goals.” The group that was simply asked to write down their goals, outperformed the thinking group by nearly 20%. See the study for yourself here.

Another study by Dr. Jim Annesi, Director of Wellness Advancement, YMCA of Metropolitan Atlanta, showed that non goal-setters were 44% more likely to quit their exercise program than their goal-setting counterparts, who also had “significantly better attendance”, according to the study.

Does this mean you can write down on a piece of paper right now “I want to get in shape” and all of the sudden you’ll achieve all your fitness goals? Not necessarily, but you’re one step ahead of the person who is reading this saying “pfft, how is writing something down going to get me in shape?”.

What you really want to do when writing down your goals is to be SPECIFIC. Everyone from legendary author Napolean Hill, who wrote the timeless classic Think and Grow Rich (a must read for anyone), to world renowned life coach and motivational speaker Tony Robbins, harp on the importance of being specific when it comes to writing down your goals. If that isn't enought, numerous studies show that specific goals are superior to vague goals when it comes to goal achievement. Read some here and here.

When writing your goals be specific, and have a measurable outcome with an exact date. If your goal is to lose weight, writing down “lose weight” won’t cut it. You want to write something like “lose 30 lbs by June 1st”. Specificity is much more powerful to the brain than vagueness.

Make an Action Plan

Your goal, whether it’s “lose 50 lbs” or “be able to do a pull-up in 5 months”, is simply your final destination, but in order to achieve it you need to map out how to actually get there.

You wouldn’t set out on a 2 week road trip across the country without mapping out your destinations would you? You don’t start a business without a business plan. So why do it any differently with your fitness goals?

Map out specific, measurable steps that lead you to your goal. A sample “map” might look like the following:

This way you have something concrete to look at every day, and you can measure it’s success at the end of the time period. If you did not lose any weight with this “map”, well you know you have to change something else in order to achieve that goal. Simply looking at a piece of paper that says “Lose 5 lbs this month” could possibly encourage you enough to achieve it, but if you fail how are you supposed to know what you did wrong?

Accountability

If you read the study by Dr. Gail Matthews I linked earlier, you would notice that the participants that were the most successful at achieving their goals utilized the help of a friend to hold them accountable and sent them periodic reports with their results.

The social pressure of having somebody else know your progress towards your goals is a powerful motivator. Remember what I said about the easiest person to lie to is yourself? Well in this case if you fail you’ll have to explain to another person why it is you failed, which isn’t quite as easy.

You could also take it a step further and use social media as a means of accountability and support. Ray Wu, MD from Cornell University, started the online company Weilos, which is a social media platform that allows users to post progress updates about their weight loss progress. Of 180 users studied, they lost an average of 1.2 lbs per week.

Another study in Translational Behavioral Medicine, showed a direct correlation between weight loss and the use of Twitter to update progress. It's apparent that social and peer pressure can have a positive effect on goal achievement.

Asking family or a friend is a good way to find an external source of accountability. The best person would be someone that you know will give it to you straight. Don’t give it to your mom if you know she’s gonna coddle you and accept your excuses. Give it to a friend or colleague that will hammer you on it.

Incentives

Another accountability strategy you could incorporate is setting stakes, or putting something on the line (typically money). This strategy comes very highly recommended by entrepreneur and life-hacking extraordinaire Tim Ferriss, who says, “people work incredibly hard to avoid losing money. Much harder, in fact, than they will work to earn it.” If there is anyone who knows how to get shit done, and quickly, it’s this man, so his advice should not be overlooked.

This point is hammered home even more by Yale University professors Dean Karlan and Ian Ayres, who developed the website Stickk.com, where you can actually put your own money at risk (or other incentives), in your pursuit to achieve your goal. According to them “behavioral science tells us that we are loss-averse...“...using Commitment Contracts can more than triple your chances of success!” Currently their users have over $24 MILLION dollars on the line and over 300,000 goal commitments.

Putting it All Together

What you should’ve taken away from all of this is that in order to be successful in realizing your fitness goals, you have to look past just the fitness aspect of it. The first step to achieving your fitness goals is by becoming a consistent goal achiever, which means incorporating proven behavior change strategies. It’s worth repeating: You can have the best workout regiment in the world, but if you don’t actually do it then it’s a bad workout regiment.

In other words, your workout is only as good as how consistently you do it. If you are consistently working out (3-4 days/wk) and still aren't seeing any results, well that's what Part 2 of this blog series discusses. Stay tuned for when I talk about Intensity.

Until then, take action by completing the following actionable steps RIGHT NOW to become a consistent exerciser. Below you'll find a goal setting worksheet you can use for this process, along with a sample worksheet already filled out.

Action Steps:

1. Write down your fitness goals somewhere that you will see them every day. Be specific (measurable) and set an exact date for completion.

2. Write down your action plan or “map”. Under each fitness goal from step 1, write down the exact steps you need to take in order to achieve that goal. Again, be specific and set dates for completion.

3. Take a copy of your written action plan and give it to someone that will hold you accountable. This can be a friend, family member, colleague, or even a trainer. This step is as easy as emailing it to someone on your email list. Just be clear that you will be updating them on your progress, and you would like them to be as stern as possible with you. If you absolutely cannot find someone to send it to, send it to me at rfonto1@gmail.com. I'll hold you accountable.

4. Set stakes. Put some kind of skin in the game dependent on achieving your goal. Money is potentially the most powerful, but it can be anything. And make it painful if you lose.

(Non-money examples: Give your spouse 25 back massages on call if you fail. Or, do the dishes for 6 months if you fail.)

#fitness #consistency #goals