The decade was quite a big one for me.
A decade where I finished college and then was fortunate enough to start this channel,
PictureFit, and hopefully have helped many of you guys since.
At least the dozens of you.
Even though I’ve only created videos for the second half of this decade, there was
quite a lot that I’ve learned along the way.
All the while being mostly drama-free… which I’ve also learned that the fitness industry
REALLY loves.
In this video, I wanna share a few things that really stood out to me personally about
the state of fitness.
So, bear with me with this not-so-sciency video and let’s take a look at five of THE
biggest things I’ve came across about fitness and the industry itself.
Starting with the fifth biggest: resistance training is THE best of ALL worlds.
Whether it’s to lose weight, build muscle, and everything else in between, resistance
training is very likely the best answer to your fitness goals.
At the start of the decade, while in college, my goal was to lose weight and burn fat, and
of course, the general belief was that CARDIO would be the best answer.
Thus, spent much more time doing cardio in college and much less time in the gym.
But after going over study after study, it seems that ignoring resistance training is
a really big mistake.
Time and time again, during this decade, I’ve run into research detailing more and more
benefits for resistance training in all populations.
From the obvious benefits of getting stronger and building muscle, to more health-centric
benefits like strengthening your bones and helping you live longer.
And yes, even being a great tool for burning fat.
Frankly, resistance training is really all you need for virtually any goal outside of
like you having to meet a certain weight goal in a short time frame.
Then, cardio would likely be the better calorie-burning option.
But even then, at the very least you want to do some form of resistance training to
make sure you don’t lose any muscle.
Suffice to say, if there is absolutely only one thing I would tell everyone to do for
the sake of their health and fitness, regardless of the decade, is to start lifting weights.
The fourth biggest thing I learned this decade: beginners too often overthink it.
Now, I’m not trying to personally attack any of you guys here, but too many times I’ve
seen beginners not realize that they’re BEGINNERS.
And then it ends up leading to making very poor decisions and overly focusing on small
details while missing the bigger picture.
Like should they eat fewer carbs on their off-day when they’re not even getting 40
grams of protein per day.
Or should they be worried about muscle imbalances and plateaus when they’ve only been training
for two months.
Many of us need to step back into the basics.
Get on a beginner’s program, learn what your TDEE is or WHAT TDEE is, make sure you
get enough protein, and get enough sleep.
Now, in fairness, it’s not really the beginner’s fault.
To be honest, the fault usually lies with the industry itself, sometimes myself included.
The industry loves to cover very specific video topics about the smallest details and
then hype it up as if it’s the biggest thing ever.
Unfortunately, it’s popular to make because they’re the type of content that usually
gets the clicks.
Personally, because of this, I’m gonna approach my topics better in 2020, especially making
sure that I continuously emphasize the fundamentals before anything else.
Number three of the things I’ve learned this decade is, fads are popping up more and
some are staying for longer.
There is no doubt that fads have been increasingly more prevalent this past decade.
We had strange plastic waist wraps, drinking vinegar for weight loss, and even supplements
with wildly misleading claims.
Although the majority of these fads usually die out in the same month they appear, some
have defiantly not.
And this might actually be because… some of these fads might actually work, but not
really because they have some magical properties.
The ketos and the intermittent fastings of the world would likely stick around for a
while, but not because of some autophagic or insulin-destroying magic.
But instead, these types of fads, eating strategies rather, can really help people manage the
amount of food they eat.
In other words, it helps people stick to their diets.
If you’ve been following me long enough, you’d know how important dietary adherence
is.
So, if these so-called fads can help people with adherence, then that’s a good thing
and something we should celebrate.
And, as fitness professionals, it’s our duty to present these “fads” as objectively
and factually as possible so it can help you make the right choice for yourself.
But, with that being said, number two of the things I’ve learned covers this even further,
and that is, calories is and continue to be THE measurement for weight management.
As much as people might like to tell you that calories don’t matter these days, there
still haven’t been any compelling evidence to support this.
Instead, throughout the decade, we’ve only seen more and more research supporting the
use of calories.
Now, I don’t wanna get into any long-winded arguments in the comments about, I’m pretty
sure there are going to be plenty of opportunities for us to argue ourselves to death about this
next year.
But personally, from what I’ve seen so far, calories matter the most when trying to lose,
gain, or maintain your weight.
Now, this is DIFFERENT from saying that all calories are equal and you can eat whatever
you want as long as you hit your calorie goals.
No, FAR from it.
How you get your calories absolutely matters and would be the factor that makes or breaks
your diet.
Again, things like keto and fasting are tools that might help you reach your calorie budget
effectively.
For others, it might be something else, like simply switching to eating more whole foods
and less processed junk.
But again, the big takeaway is that calories still and, likely forever, matter.
And number one, arguably the biggest fitness thing I’ve learned this decade:
PROTEIN, you GOTS to get it.
This probably doesn’t surprise a lot of you.
I didn’t start making fitness videos thinking that I would be such a huge proponent of protein,
but the more and more I researched, the more and more I realized that we all gotta GET
OUR PROTEIN.
If resistance training is the biggest piece of a successful exercise program, then PROTEIN
is the big dog of all successful diets.
It just does so much good.
And perhaps the one thing I found most fascinating about protein is that we’re typically told
to eat less if we want to lose weight, but that doesn’t apply to protein.
With protein, you’re more than likely better eating MORE.
Because protein actually can help you eat less, help preserve your muscles, and even
help you burn more calories.
Freaking amazing!
And of course, if you wanna bulk up, then more protein is a no-brainer.
Simply put, you gotta get your protein.
And that wraps up the decade.
It’s been quite a ride.
There’s definitely gonna be more videos in this next decade for all of you to critique
the crap out of but also, hopefully, find useful and enjoy.
From the bottom of my heart, thank you for joining me, whether it’s from the beginning
of the channel in 2015, or just starting with this video, thank you for watching, and as
always, GET YOUR PROTEIN.
Maybe I should get a new catchphrase next year.