Take this test to see if the fitness challenge you’re looking at is actually good for you (6 min read)

Stop trying to lose weight! A guide to finding a challenge that works.

We all want to lose a bit of weight (or a lot).

We all want to trim some body fat, feel a little nicer in our clothes, look better naked, be comfortable and confident enough to wear a bikini or board shorts without a rashy on the beach. 

It’s what everyone “wants”.

And without a doubt, you’ve seen hundreds of ads before, advertising those exact things. 

Those ads and videos that tell you that you can and should lose a certain amount of weight in a certain amount of time. 

“Lose 10kg’s in 10 weeks with our blah blah blah 10-week body transformation program”

“Get bikini body ready with our fat burner sweat program”

“Get ripped/jacked/shredded with our ultra supernova shred program”

**These are not real programs that I have mocked, these are made up and funny. lol. (But they probably do exist).

Regardless of what they are and what they aim to help you achieve, the stats are in. 

They don’t work. 

I’m sorry, that’s a lie. 

They do work. 

For a very short period of time. Then you go back to a normal lifestyle and you put the weight back on, you lose the fitness, and more than likely, you end up worse than before you started the challenge.

It may be harsh, but it’s true.

The vast majority of people who do weight loss focussed challenges end up over training, under eating and they do lose weight. But they can’t sustain it. And a year later they’re in a worse position than they were before they did the challenge.

It’s not healthy and it’s just not very practical. 

So to help, we created this simple guide to identifying if a challenge is actually going to help you achieve any sort of long term goal when it comes to your health and fitness:

Your guide to finding a fitness challenge that actually works:

Step 1.

  1. Does the challenge promote rapid weight loss or any form of a specific numerical weight loss? (Lose 10kg in 12 weeks, etc.) – If yes ❎ If no ✅
  2. Does the challenge promote a bikini body? – If yes ❎ If no ✅
  3. Is most of what the challenge promotes focussed on losing (Weight, Inches, Cm’s, Fat, etc.)? – If yes ❎ If no ✅
  4. Does the challenge seem to be an unsustainable approach to healthy fitness based living? – If yes ❎ If no ✅
  5. Is there a results based promise or money back guarantee? – If yes ❎ If no ✅

Step 2.

  1. Is there a focus on increasing performance, whether that be in strength, fitness, movement, etc? – If yes ✅ If no ❎
  2. Is there an emphasis on creating healthy, long term habits in nutrition, training & day to day living? – If yes ✅ If no❎
  3. Are there people who are training for 18 months or longer who have seen long lasting positive fitness health based changes? – If yes ✅ If no❎

Step 3:

  1. Are you willing to take a better and more sustainable approach to your health & fitness? – If yes ✅ If no❎
  2. Do you believe that focussing on moving better, training better, eating better & being stronger is going to be better for you, your body and your lifestyle? – If yes ✅ If no ❎
  3. Do you want to be stronger, move better, be fitter & have the ability to do it for long after the challenge finishes? – If yes ✅ If no ❎

Results:

Tally up your score.

If in step 1 & 2, the challenge that you’re looking into gets an ❎ then it’s no good. It might help you lose some weight, but more than likely you’re going to do it in a way that is not sustainable and will be almost impossible to maintain once the challenge has finished. 

If in step 1 & 2, the challenge that you’re looking into gets all ✅ then you’re very lucky. You’ve found one of the good ones. You will more than likely become stronger & fitter, you’ll end up moving better and will be educated and trained in a way that is long lasting and you’ll be developing healthy habits that you can continue to implement for the rest of your life. 

If in step 3, you gave yourself an ❎, then you probably shouldn’t be looking for a challenge at this point in time, because you aren’t ready to make long lasting positive changes to your training, nutrition and lifestyle. And more than likely you will end up sending your metabolism on a downward spiral for years after you are finished. 

In the end, I can’t tell you what to do. I can’t tell you which challenge to choose. 

What I can do, is share with you knowledge and advice from over 10 years of working in the industry and helping people make lasting, effective and positive changes to their bodies. 

If that’s what you want, then you should start looking for the right type of challenge. Or just the right type of gym.

Have a great day

Denee 

Founder & co-owner of UFT PLAYgrounds

2019-07-26T15:49:17+10:00

About the Author:

Denee Lalouette
A UFT PLAYground is a place that people of all shapes, sizes and ages learn to develop their movement abilities through an infinite learning and development program. UFT PLAYgrounds have been created to re-inspire our natural ability to move, create, adapt, re-act, connect, have fun and of course PLAY. PLAYgrounds have been developed to allow people to feel and explore their own abilities by utilising a multidimensional, infinite, creative and PLAYful approach to training. We live in a world full of specialists and obsessions. At an ever increasing rate, people are specialising more and more, in their jobs, in their businesses, in their sport and in their training. The result, is a backward step in human evolution. By specialising, we limit ourselves to thinking that 1 particular way of doing things is the right way, or the only way. We promote creativity, not only in movement and training methodologies but in thinking in general. A UFT PLAYground is created to provide the general public with an opportunity to PLAY across multiple styles of training and moving, to be able to progress in the training methods that they become passionate about or that excites them and to be a part of a community that promotes more than just fitness. The “fitness” industry above all others has brought about a need to specialise in order to achieve anything, and majority of what we do for “fitness” is for an aesthetically pleasing reason. We understand that aesthetics are nice and we too love to look and feel good. However a UFT PLAYground is developed to allow people to move better than ever before across a broad range of training methodologies and ideas. Aesthetics, therefore are a result not a goal of that system. We know that “If you train to look good, you will not always enjoy what you do, but if you PLAY a lot, and do the things that you love, you will ending up looking good”. Aesthetics should be a result not a goal. For years now, we have recognised that the best movers on the planet are children. They are flexible, mobile & fit, they have better relative strength than a typical adult (and even most adolescents), they are the best creators and innovators, they learn faster, the adapt better, they interact better with other people, they are more connected to nature and most importantly, they PLAY more than anyone else. As adults, we tend to believe that because we are taller and more experienced in “life”, we are better, and then we get to an age that says we are “too old to PLAY”. As we grow taller (and in a lot of cases rounder), we experience things that inhibit our ability to move, think and not think. We allow our experiences to limit our abilities as humans, whether it be a physical injury, a story that we heard or a youtube video that we watched. We also allow our emotions to control our behaviour because of our past experiences. Maybe it was the feeling of humiliation when we tried something new, regret when we failed or heart break when it was taken away from us. Because of this, we allow our experiences to control our future instead of learning from them and creating our own . This is what UFT PLAYground’s are built on. The understanding that we as humans need to go back to the way things were before our negative experiences took over our subconscious mind and body. A UFT PLAYground gives people the ability to re-learn what they have lost, as well as develop new sets of skills that will allow them to follow any particular passion that they uncover in PLAYtime. When we PLAY, we are simply, exploring. Through exploring we become curious and through curiosity we become obsessed or passionate about a particular thing. This is why in a PLAYground we allow people to PLAY across a broad range of training systems (minimum of 3), Through this system they are able to identify 1, their current limitations and be educated on how to overcome them, and 2, identify their passions and learn to develop, grow and excel in them. UFT PLAYgrounds are also a development centre for up and coming entrepreneurs in the fitness industry. Each PLAYground founder will have been trained and will be continuously trained in UFT’s Trainer Success System. This system allows personal trainers, coaches, teachers, instructors, etc. to continue to develop in their fields of specialty (as they play they will find it) and in the philosophy of PLAYtime. They will also be trained in the business systems of UFT in order to have their own successful and profitable business. See UFT Trainer Success System for more details.

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