Get out of the way...
You think you know how to workout?
Few do. I get asked questions every single day, from gym buffs who are smart enough to recognize they can always learn more, to neophytes who cannot figure out how a machine operates. The questions are pretty much the same 20 questions. The bottom line is that everyone is confused. They've read too much. They know a lot of information but none of it is congruent enough to make sense.
You may know many different exercises for a particular "body part", but you probably don't know movement unless you've studied it. I don't mean you've watched Youtube videos of
AthleanX. I mean actual anatomy and physiology.
You can even be a certified trainer and not really understand how to direct someone to move with proper activation. I have coached many trainers on the psychology of learning and how it pertains to movement or fitness training if you can't to call it that...
Is an overhead shoulder press a shoulder flexion, an extension, or an adduction of the humerus?
Is it a combination of two or more of these movements? Have you ever heard of circumduction? (it is not the genitalia procedure done at birth...)
Muscles move bones, nothing else. The deadlift is a horizontal motion. So is the bench press. Yes horizontal... but the weights move up and down! Once again, muscles move bones, not weights.
Can you willfully activate a muscle in isolation if you don't know its primary function? Instinctively perhaps, but instinct doesn't build great bodies...
What should you eat? I don't know, what do you do and how do you eat now? What do you want to accomplish?
Are you committed or merely interested? You cannot change without making a change.
You cannot wish to look like a fitness model and keep eating like a high school freshman.
In life there are only two variables: Your goals and your actions.
If you are not willing to change your actions your only other choice is to change your goals. I say willing because we always are able to change, but not always willing...
Food allows athletes to perform up to a desired level, not to achieve a look. (try sending Lance Armstrong on a Tour de France stage after have fed him a protein shake and a wheatgrass and see just how far he will go, and how fast he got there...) Eating the right food for you means eating in a manner that will sustain your activity level and your mental/physical wellbeing overtime. This is what we call a LIFESTYLE. It is not an IDENTITY. Real Lifestyles are easy to maintain since they are your "normal". Diets are not lifestyles, they are always temporary and all too often unsatisfactory overtime.
Not eating food allows a person to suffer through exercise and also life.I have done both.
Fear is a great motivator but it doesn't solve problems. Fear of failing, fear of being fat. Fear of food. Fear of to being accepted by your peers. Human Beings have been programmed to fear everything in order to survive.
Being in shape will not fix one's unhappiness, however happiness will most often fix someone's body image issues...
You will not reach your goals if you don't maintain your body. This whole thing is about balance, not struggle. It's about understanding ALL the variables: Mindset, goal, preparation, food, exercise, recovery, sleep, reassessment, and success.
Success can be scary and can leads to sabotage the closer one gets to their goals. That's also a part of personal training psychology.
I have made all the mistakes one can make on the journey to create a better looking and better functioning version of myself. You don't have to make the same mistakes in order to succeed. Discover how your body operates and stop the guess work.