Mastering Fitness: Strategic Systems and Consistent Effort

MindsetLifestyle

May 27

Fitness has become increasingly popular in the last decade. Many of us desire and strive for fitness, but don't know where to start or how to implement the protocols and principles that yield the best results. Fitness is a broad term that encompasses a lifestyle choice for achieving high performance, physical and mental well-being, and an aesthetically pleasing physique. Achieving these results requires tradeoffs and acceptance. Fitness is essentially about fighting entropy, the human body's natural tendency to decay over time. This decay can manifest as weight gain, physical deterioration, decreased mental well-being, and declining performance.

A well-known quote by James Clear states: "You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems." Your systems are your default option. Without systems, the default option can often be the most immediately rewarding one. This is especially true in fitness and when establishing a fit lifestyle. Systems and data-based decisions can make a significant difference in the long run. Fitness is naturally a long-term game, and small, consistent habits are the most important variable that you can manipulate for compound results in the future. Similar to investing.

Habits can be most effective when tied to your identity due to the social nature of human beings. This is emphasized by James Clear in his popular book Atomic Habits. As a social being embedded in society and sub-groups, you care about others' opinions, even if you claim otherwise. Your identity is shaped by your own opinions as well as those of others. Habits based on your identity impact both how you see yourself and how others perceive you.

Identity can also become a trap. You may get trapped into the small confines of the identities you and the people around you gave you until now, boxed in that claustrophobic cubicle and scared of breaking out because of the huge shake it would entail. When you are trapped in your current identity, you feel egoically attached to it, and whatever you do is tied to your perceived sense of self, which may actually be irrelevant in the mysterious riddle of human consciousness and its essence.

Being attached to an identity is a by-product of the ego (spiritual ego, not Freudian Ego) clinging to something for the sake of developing itself. As a Zen philosopher may argue, possessions and identities are the things we cling to in our existence to ease the suffering stemming from our inherently empty nature. We can’t quite pinpoint our value and essence as human beings. So we attach our self-worth to things and accolades to make ourselves feel more alive and concrete and possibly transcend the short life on Earth. Dr. Robert Waldinger explains this concept very well in this conversation.

Now let’s get back to systems in fitness. Your approach to systems in fitness can fall somewhere on a spectrum: from incredibly analytical and methodical to not analytical at all and only following your momentary feelings. The epitome of applying analytics and systems to fitness and lifestyle is embodied by Bryan Johnson, a former startup founder who sold his business for hundreds of millions of dollars and has completely fixated on using his body as a running experiment to reverse aging ever since.

As Bryan argues in this conversation, he believes that human consciousness can be significantly raised once we understand and implement the practice of using our body (and the data around it) to make life and fitness decisions, instead of our distorted feelings and thoughts. Feelings and emotions are often unreliable. The body can be methodically analyzed and you can act based on the data you get. This can be a revolutionary mindset for living everyday life that could also decrease drama, which is caused by emotions and thoughts for the most part. It also represents a solution to the “motivation is a myth” argument, which states that motivation is unreliable and momentary, whereas systems are solid and reliable. On the other hand, one may argue that emotions and thoughts are the essence of human consciousness and what distinguishes humans from other beings.

On the other extreme of the spectrum, there is a fitness belief that emotions and thoughts can drive your fitness choices. According to this belief, you can sense what is best for your body and mind by developing self-awareness and interoception. As a consequence, nutrition and training can be crafted around your feelings based on circumstances. This approach can be a source of meaning and satisfaction to develop self-awareness and become more acquainted with your own sensations, a skill that many Eastern philosophers may deem fundamental for living an appropriate life. It can be a source of uncertainty and counterproductive behaviors for some people who may have a low degree of intrinsic motivation, which becomes an essential ability when practicing this belief.

As is often the case in statistics, the majority of individuals fall somewhere in between those two extremes of the spectrum when it comes to approaching fitness and lifestyle. You may use a mix of data and feelings to develop your fitness life. In any circumstance, some systems can be valuable because systems are the default option. The choice you make when it is raining outside and there is a morning training session on your program. Nurturing some systems, however small you start, is a pragmatically desirable choice. Here are some foundational systems and principles that can guide your behavior around fitness and lifestyle:

Train at the same time every training day. No matter how many times a week you train (at least 3 times is probably best). Automate the process of reaching your training location and being ready to train. You can stack rituals on top of each other. You could establish a pre-workout ritual that always involves the same process and provides the brain with a familiar routine that signals it’s time to get into training mode. You can follow training programs to take the guesswork out of your sessions and measure progress.
Sleep and wake up at the same time every day. This fine-tunes your circadian rhythm and establishes clear routines for you depending on the time of the day. It is also a source of energy because when you sleep consistently at the same times and for enough time during the night, you will feel more energetic and grounded. This can improve your performance when training and create snowball effects in your nutrition regimen.
Eat meals at the same time every day. No matter what nutrition regimen you follow, you can systemize your meal timing by blocking specific windows of time to eat. You can focus on ingesting nutritious meals (i.e., with a good balance of macro and micronutrients), and track your calorie intake if necessary to gain an understanding of nutrition. In this case too, this mental model (system) of “eating at the same time every day” provides you with a guide that aids your decision-making. When you don’t have principles to follow, you need to make decisions. You make decisions all day, and your willpower is limited. When you don’t have systems, you may slip into undesirable behavior because you have no principle to follow by default.

When your default option is an intentional system, you can use your limited willpower for higher-stake decisions in your everyday life. You fall to the level of your systems, and the fall may not be that high when your systems are carefully crafted based on data. You may feel that having systems can go the wrong way and you end up living like a robot, so fixated on always doing the same things you are. This also depends on your level of openness to experience. Systems can free up your willpower and time to experiment with novel experiences in your life, which may be necessary components of a meaningful existence.