Back to the Basics – Complicated = Failure

I’m Coach Scott, and today I’m going to talk about keeping it simple, keeping to the basics. Too often I get asked a lot of questions. First of all, I’ve been in I’ve owned a gym for 13 years and always been into health and fitness and worked out forever and played sports and, you know, all that kind of stuff. But I guess I get asked a lot of complicated questions, which are really irrelevant to 99% of the people out there. An example of this is, should I be carb loading for my workouts? Should I be fasting? How much protein I’m going to eat my body weight in grams of protein I’m, should I work out five times a week. Should I be running 5 miles every day? What if I just go to the gym every day to train, how do I get better at my chest bench press? Just like, weird questions that people ask that just want some free advice, which I’m fine giving free advice. I’m always here to help, but a lot of it’s just a bunch of bullshit, because you’re not doing the basics that you need to do in order to progress yourself, to get better, to get stronger, to look better, to feel better, be healthy, be able to play with your kids. I mean, we can go on and on and on, right? But what are some basics you should actually be doing?

I’m like, do you work at it all now? No, okay, have you worked out before in the past? Yeah, but I always quit. And I do it for like, a month or two, and then I quit. I get bored. I don’t know what to do.

Well, first of all, you should get a coach or a personal trainer, or go to a gym that is actually a coaching gym, so you don’t just keep wasting your money getting frustrated and failing over and over and over again. Okay, so basics, find someone to help you. All right, if you don’t get help, you’re not going to get anywhere. And I don’t know anyone, and even the most successful people I know, get help with whatever they’re working on, whether it’s workouts, their business, their job, they want to just be an overall better person. They want to educate themselves on some things. There’s so many things that are out there. The more you know, the the more you need to know.

Okay, but really, it comes down to the basics, doing them over and over and over again, and getting really good at it. And then when you go to change something, and I’m gonna try this new thing, and you fuck it up, go back to the basics again. Okay, it’s not complicated, but we are, as people, we make complicated, and we mess it up time and time again, myself included, I’ve messed it up. Alright? So back to the basics.

One, do you get enough sleep? Right? Super important. People don’t think about with their workouts and their health and fitness, that getting sleep super important. Too many times I ask that, and they’re like, I sleep like, four hours. I’m like, well, that’s some bullshit. Well, I get up at this time, I go to bed. At this time I get home from work, I take care of the kids. Have to this, this, this. You need to sleep, or else you’re going to deteriorate. Right? Your body can’t function. It can function for a while, but then it becomes a health issue, a health problem, and you wonder why you’re not able to work you’re not able to work out. You’re tired, you don’t want to play with your kids. You do all these other things, right? Get enough sleep.

Next is nutrition, the biggest bullshit out there that there is, and all of these things like fasting, and like I mentioned, carb loading and protein, way too much protein, and just being crazy about eating. It’s very, very simple. Do I eat three times a day? Do I Yes, shit, yeah, I do. But do you people like, No, I don’t have time. I i skip breakfast because I’m busy and I don’t need it, I’m not hungry, and then I’ll eat maybe a snack, and then I’ll have a good dinner. Well, we know we can’t survive on that, and your muscles won’t grow, and your body will actually gain more fat and not lose the fat it has, and it loses muscle, right? You if you don’t eat enough, your body will use muscle as energy instead of burning fat and blah, blah, blah, we can get super complicated, but if you don’t eat enough, you’re gonna go nowhere, I promise you. So do you eat three times a day? Do you eat any protein? Do you eat vegetables? Do you eat any fruit? So before you ask any complicated questions, eat three meals, eat some fruit, eat some vegetables and have some protein. Once you get that down consistently, day after day, week after week, you’ve gone a whole year, then we’ll make some changes. But for most people I talk to, they can’t get those basics down, but they want to do super high advanced things like macros. I want to count my macros. I want to track everything. Yes, we do some tracking. We work with clients with nutrition, but we do it with where you’re at and what you can handle. If I told you to track all your macros and weigh your food, it’s fucking ridiculous. You’re not going to do it. You’re gonna fail and again, get nowhere, just like you do with your workouts at the gym, right?

The next basic to master is water, Do you drink enough water? I don’t drink water. I don’t like it. I don’t give a shit if you don’t like it, drink some freaking water. You’re an adult. Drink water. You know, you need to drink water to sustain yourself. Okay? You cannot eat for a week, but you can’t last very long. I think it’s three days without water, and you’ll die. Drink some water and drinking energy drinks, or drinking coffee or drinking pop, or diet pop. Yes, it’s all good shit. I know it tastes great, but if you don’t drink any freaking water. You’re not drinking water. Start with one bottle of water a day or one cup a day, and go from there, the basics. Remember, I’m not talking rocket science with any of this. I’m talking the basics.

All right, what’s next on my list? We got sleep, nutrition, water, oh, workouts next. Okay,
I haven’t worked out in like five years while you’re in trouble, right? We know that we start to lose muscle after about two weeks. It’s not huge, but we start to lose some muscle atrophy in two weeks. So if you’re not doing anything, I suggest starting with some basics. What are some basics? Well, do you actually go for a walk? Do you get your fat ass off the couch and actually go for a walk? Too many times I see parents like they do everything for their kids, and they don’t even go for a walk. Go outside, play, do this. I take them all the sports things. They do these things, but they don’t go for a damn walk. Try a walk. Then try adding some weight when you walk. Hey, now I’m gonna do some push ups and sit ups and some squats, just body weight. Can you do that?
If you hired a coach or personal trainer, came to a gym that coached you, you’d know what to do, right? And most gyms have personal trainers. Yes. Is it more expensive? Yeah, it’s more expensive than a basic gym membership. But what’s more expensive? You can’t get your ass off the couch, you can’t play with your kids. You’re dead by 40, or you have a heart attack because you’re too lazy to make the time to go do something again. Go back to the basics, right? Don’t talk to me about complicated workouts and all these other things when you can’t even get a walk in a day, a freaking walk. Okay? Make the time. You have to make the time. Yes, life’s fucking busy. I know it’s busy. It’s not going to get slower. So don’t wait. I hear Hey, when I turn 40, when I turn 50 all the time, thats when I’ll start. No, you’re way too late. You gotta start to workout. You gotta start working out now. Okay, so hey, can we do some exercise three times a week? Whatever it might be, three times. Alright, so we’ve got, we’ve got our sleep, nutrition, water, exercise, we’re on four next stress.

How’s your stress? Right? If your stress is super high. I hear so many times my job sucks. I hate my job, my job, my job, my job. Go get our new freaking job. There’s lots of jobs out there. Go find one that works for you. I know it’s difficult and hard to go do that. I’m not telling you to quit your job today, but start looking for something to do besides the shit you’re doing right now that is so stressed. I hear it all the time. I gotta work 12 hours a day every day. No You don’t. You’re saying that in your head, but you’re not working 12 hours a day. Now, some companies go on where they have to work. they have to work shutdowns for like nuclear power plants or things like that. Yes, they work a lot when those times, but that’s not all year, right? And no one works 12 hours a day evey day It’s impossible. You can’t it’s just, it’s just as a line of bullshit that you tell why you don’t do the things that you need to do. So you’re super stressed, right? That’s probably the number one thing. So figure that out, or your relationship sucks, and you’re stressed about that. Well, when’s the last time you did something about it? When’s the last time you went on a date with your significant other or just hung out and talked instead of watching TV? , being on your phone fucking annoys me. I can go on and on. We went on vacation a while ago, amazing restaurant, And we watched these people. We were on a second level, looking down or whatever, and these people were on their phone the whole time, didn’t talk to each other, had food, , stayed on their phone while they ate the whole time. What the fuck is the point of going out to dinner or hanging with significant other if you’re on the phone? All right? Just fucking burns me, and then people wonder why they got problems. You got problems because you’re the freaking problem. Okay, all right, I’m done with that one. But listen, take care of your relationship, and find a job that you actually like or can tolerate and stop complaining about it. And don’t be stressed about your kids 900 freaking activities. You let them do 900 activities. I know you want the best for your kids, and yes, I don’t have kids that don’t talk shit to me, but I’ve dealt with it a million times with people, Yes, they can play sports, they can do things, but figure it out. So you have time to do what you need to do too, to be there for your kids when they’re older, when they’re adults, they’re gonna need you forever, If you’re not around, what good are you, Who cares that you you took a 900 little league fucking things and did all these other things. It doesn’t matter. They can do some things, have fun, but be there for them when they’re older, that’s when they really need you, not as much when they’re little, right? That’s the basics of taking care of a kid, but helping them grow into be a successful lcontributing adult in society. That means a lot more, right? And and stop looking at your phone, because it’s just a bunch of bullshit and lies. Anyways, unless you, unless you work, you have your own business, you’re going to be on your phone because there’s always shit and there’s social media you have to do as a business owner. All right, so I’m not saying don’t ever be on it, but schedule that time. All right, be more productive in the time that you have.

And the last part I look at with most people in the basics, is mindset. One, are you a happy, go lucky, smiling person? I know within five minutes of talking to somebody, and I talk to a lot of people, If you can laugh and joke and talk to me and be funny, I’m easy to talk to. I’m not easy to talk to if I don’t freaking like you, but I like almost everybody. So there’s very few people I don’t like or can’t find the goodness in them to like. so are you smiling and happy and joking with me when I meet you in the first five minutes?
That’s like one of my things that I look for. The second part I look for is how committed are you to making a change. Change is freaking hard. I know it. It’s hard for me too. It’s hard for everybody. But if you get committed and stick to it, everything starts to get better. you start to get your personal relationships better, your work, your fitness, your health, your relationship with your kids. It all gets better when you stick to the basics and stay committed.

Recap so six areas to look at with the basics of life. One, do you sleep enough? Two, do you drink enough water? Three, do you eat properly? Doesn’t have to be perfect, but not poor. Poorly. Eat properly. Do we get in some exercise? Do we manage our stress? And the last one I’m drawing a blank here, mindset, oh my gosh. Mindset, okay, so do you have a good mindset, good outlook on life? And your Are you committed to certain things that you stick to.

I hope that helps master the basics. Forget about all the other bullshit, because if you don’t have the basics down, you can’t build to get to those things. You gotta build up from the very bottom and go up. Don’t talk to me about super high level things when you don’t even have the basic things figured out at all. If you need help with the basics, I’m always here to help. Please reach out CrossFit,Plainfield.comfield. Scott Romijn on Facebook, Instagram, however you want to reach me. Okay, look forward to talking to you. I hope that helps stick to the basics until next time take care.