How to Stay in Shape with the Simple Fitness Pyramid
Much like the food pyramid we were all taught in school which is actually terribly wrong, at the top of the staying in fitness pyramid we have the things done least often and least important, and at the bottom, we have the things most important and done more often. So let's get started with the ideal staying fit pyramid starting from number 1 (most important) counting up to number 5 (least important)!
Sleep & Recovery
Diet & Nutrition
Lifestyle Habits
Fitness Programs
Cheat Days
Really? Because if you take a look at the pyramid again you will see that fitness programs is actually number 4 (second to last most important) on the list. And in terms of most important for staying in shape is actually pretty much the easiest thing (in theory), which is sleep and recovery.
In reality this is where the average semi-motivated person is at with their fitness pyramid, and this doesn't mention how well they even do these things:
Cheat Days
Fitness Program
Diet & Nutrition
Lifestyle Habits
Sleep and Recovery
The problem with this "average fitness pyramid" is that most of your fitness benefits come from sleep , lifestyle and diet. So, in reality, people are wasting their time and energy and seeing less results and getting frustrated and unmotivated more and more and working harder more and more and then just give up when it gets too hard simply because their fitness pyramid is not effective, not because they are at fault.
What's a cheat day? Anything you really like to do that goes against your goals and usually something easy and enjoyable but not all that healthy.
The ideal fitness pyramid again:
Sleep & Recovery
Diet & Nutrition
Lifestyle Habits
Fitness Programs
Cheat Days
Here's the run down on this.
Sleep and recovery are most important as this is the time when your body and mind and all your physiology and psychology integrate and assimilate and improve from what you do and consume during the day. Poor sleep and poor recovery makes you fat and out of shape because your body is in stress and has a hard time working not just hard but just right during the day and workouts and digesting and taking in nutrition it needs to build and stay healthy. From low testosterone to overtraining to pretty much anything else, poor sleep can also be a symptom of a certain health issue that should be further prioritized.
Diet and nutrition are key to body composition because 80% of your muscle is determined by what you eat. 20% of your muscle is determined by your workout. Supplements fit into this level of the pyramid and can be a great addition to your diet for achieving proper nutrition in this crazy world and also for maximizing the benefits of each workout.
Lifestyle habits is best summarized by asking the question: who is going to be healthier and fitter and have an easier time staying in shape with less effort, some who works a desk job 10 hours a day and then exercises like an animal 1 hour per day or someone who exercises 0 hours per day and simply stays moving and active? Good lifestyle habits are sustainable and improve quality of life, they are way more important than working out for staying fit and in shape, for your life.
Fitness programs is second to last on the list simply because they are not super important (super super elite elite sprint, endurance and strength athletes aside) when it comes to staying in shape and fit for the reasons described above. You don't HAVE TO workout hours a day, you certainly can, but it's not necessary to stay in shape and fit. You got it? There is a certain loss of gains as well if someone works out too much, so keep that in mind as well. On top of this, even if we're doing 2 hours workouts per day, that's still 22 hours in the rest of the day left for us to screw it up with a shitty diet, poor sleep, and so on. Workouts are the spark that ignites what you are doing right in your life for your body and mind and physiology, they are not the main solution to fitness, they support it, they are never the end game.
Cheat days are fine. It can be done once per week if you want. But when you are in the right system for you life, you may stat to experience the need for a cheat day to fall away. We think of things like sugar cravings and carb cravings on cheat days, but those are also signs of nutritional imbalances and that your body isn't working right. So you could eat a doughnut and enjoy it but not get the same dopamine response vs. someone who desperately needs the sugar for stress response and energy from poor fat burning capabilities and lifestyle habits. Let's not also forget to mention a cheat day can also be working out all day or "too much" for those types of people, you know who you are!
So, that's basically it.
And as you can see, staying in shape is actually not very hard at all but actually it is SO MUCH HARDER than just working out, thinking that's mostly it and calling it good. YOU HAVE TO PRIORITIZE correctly the organization of your pyramid, your life, and do the hard work to make habits for 30 days and make it stick, to do the simple thing like sleep best above all else.
After that, then it's easy. :)