Be as lazy as you can to be fit and healthy

There are lots of diets and exercise programs out there and most of them work - for a while. You try the watermelon diet and you will lose 5kg, 10kg and then a year later you put it all back on with 20% interest. This cycle of lose-gain-lose-gain results in a billion dollar weight loss and fitness industry and a generation of obesity. The secret to being fit and healthy all year round is to be lazy.

Lazy is an unwillingness to work or use energy and that's the key to being fit all the time. You must be unwilling to work, unwilling to do any more than you need to in order to achieve your goal. You must do the absolute minimum to get there. If you can get to your weight loss goal or your fitness goal with the least amount of work then you have a much better chance of sustaining it.

If you want to be thin then there are lots of unsustainable methods. If you want to be thin all the time you need to make lifestyle changes. Often those changes are just small tweaks that build up over time that make your goals a reality. The same goes for fitness or health or strength.

Of course, if your goal is to be an athlete then your level of lazy will be higher than someone who wants to attain an average level of fitness. The point I'm making here is that the less you can do to achieve your goal the more likely you are to maintain it. If it's a lot of work and effort to achieve your goal then you are less likely to maintain what you have achieved.

For me, right now, I'm trying to lose about 4kg of fat. I'm doing 2 things to achieve that. I'm following a diet that isn't difficult that is 500 calories less than what I would normally eat. That amounts to about 20% less food per meal. That's doable. And I'm exercising 4 times a week for about 30 mins. That's 2 hours per week. That's doable too. It should take me about 12-20 weeks. That's realistic. When I get to the goal I get to eat a little bit more and the exercise is still only 2 hours per week. That's lazy fitness.

Are you doing too much to achieve your goals? What's the absolute minimum you need to achieve your fitness and health goals? What could you achieve between now and the end of the year? Leave a comment and let me know.