Most Things Are Not Inherently Good Or Bad

While this concept can apply to many different industries and situations, we will stay in our lane of strength training and nutrition for now. I’ll always stand behind the notion that “it depends” when we receive a complex question looking for a standard answer. For example, we’ve previously touched on the fact that nutrition and fat loss can be a bit of a tough item to tackle for some, and pretty straight forward for others. A client might find success with simply fasting each morning (in turn eating less), while another client might finally break through by eating higher protein and more vegetables; their friend loses weight by going Keto or vegetarian.

When assessing a proper fat loss protocol for a client or when asked for advice, there’s a lot of things to consider. What might work for me or you, might not work for our friend due to their preexisting conditions or lifestyle. Everyone likes to talk about how high intensity interval training (HIIT) is great for fat loss. In a lot of situations this is true. What if you’re highly overweight, chronically stressed, sleep deprived and have poor nutrition quality? Do you think two to three days per week of 30-minute HIIT classes alone will help you look the way you want? If all other conditions stay the same, no chance. It worked for your friend because they had everything else under control and were in a position to make body composition changes. Does this make HIIT outright ineffective? Not at all - it simply shows that it isn’t the cut and dry answer for a complex issue.

We can go ahead and look at the same issue in nutrition. It becomes harder and harder for us to gain people’s trust (rightfully so) because of the poor experiences and advice that was given previously. Blanket statements such as standard calorie count simply based on gender or fad diet suggestions are ineffective and at times even dangerous. We must go off dietary history, lifestyle, stressors, allergies and so much more. There might be low hanging fruit (no pun intended) right in front of us for easy changes if we just ask the right questions, instead of forming a one size fits all approach.

The major takeaway from this should be that no one will care about your health and wellness more than you. When receiving advice or getting the idea to try something new because someone claimed, “it works”- take a step back and ask, “does it work for me?”