We’ve all heard the famous saying that to develop the best looking physique it takes “80% Diet and 20% Training”. Well I personally believe that saying is a load of crap! If you want to truly develop your physique and improve upon your health and fitness, then it’s going to take 100% DIET and 100% TRAINING. You can’t half ass your workouts in the gym and eat clean in the kitchen, and expect to notice significant changes in your physique. Nor can you train your ass off each and every workout while binging on pizza and ice cream and expect to have ripped abs and a lean/muscular looking physique. It’s all or nothing……PERIOD!
Now this ofcourse does not mean that you can’t enjoy the occasional cheat meal or “light workout” (although I don’t personally believe in “light workouts” as any of my clients will attest for). And just because the food you are required to eat to build and maintain an incredible healthy and looking physique might be deemed as “boring” and “tasteless”, it doesn’t need to be. You just need to be able to think outside the box. With a little will and a bit of determination, anyone can become creative in the kitchen.
The Poor Man’s Luck
I’m extremely lucky because I grew up poor. I mean really poor. So poor that if I wasn’t a boy I would have had nothing to play with (Thanks for that one Rodney Dangerfield!). But in all seriousness, I grew up during a time of recession. My parents both struggled to make a decent income as there were few and far jobs available for people in the working field. And because we were poor, my brother and I grew up on leftovers and hand-me-downs. Now one might wonder why I consider myself to have been lucky to have grown up so poor. Well quite simply, if I grew up with money and was provided a cushy lifestyle, I would have never learned how to be self-sufficient and disciplined with my life choices. And if I never learned how to be self-sufficient and disciplined, I most likely would have never learned how to make my own food on a budget and how not to give into short term gratification at the expense of losing long term satisfaction. In fact, I owe a great deal of my success in the fitness industry to growing up poor.
Meal Prepping 101
The first time I ever meal prepped, I was 7 years old. Back then we didn’t call it “Meal Prepping” though. We simply called it “Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner”. There was no such thing as a “Sunday Funday”, and a person was not to be considered as “Hardcore” because they prepped their own meals for the week ahead. Consuming the same foods day in and day out was not “boring” it was necessary. Portioning out your meals was not treated as something to be admired for, it was just something to be advised for or else you would go hungry. And never at one point did we refer to packing our own meals and traveling with them as “hustling”, we just called it “leftovers”.
The Struggle IS NOT REAL!
Not being self motivated enough to make your own food or go to the gym and train does not make the struggle “real”. Regardless of whether you are working with a budget, work two jobs, or are raising a family, there is ALWAYS time to fit fitness and health into your lifestyle. Now I’m not going to sit here and preach about why the excuse “No Time” is not and never will be a valid excuse to use when it comes to eating clean and exercising regularly. And I’m not going to ridicule and shame the excuse “No Money” as a reason as to why someone can’t clean up their diet and train on a consistent basis. Chances are that if you’re reading this then you already know that you don’t need much time to fit in a good workout. And I would imagine that you also most likely know that it doesn’t cost much to follow a clean and nutritious diet. What it does take though is a bit of effort on your part to incorporate these changes into your lifestyle.
Never Enough
So why can’t you meal prep? I don’t know, only you can answer that question. But regardless if the reason for your lack of meal prepping is due to “being too busy” or “not having enough time” or “enough money”, you might one day come to the conclusion that enough is enough. I mean, do you really need to meal prep? Ofcourse not! But it only seems logical to me to make your own meals, because if you are really too busy and don’t have enough time or enough money to prep your own food, then surely you must be too busy or too broke to go out of your way and pay twice as much for a restaurant or fast food joint to cook and prepare your food for you.
“Happiness Belongs to the Self Sufficient”
Aristotle
Yours in Good Health,
Nick Cosgrove