What do you value most in life?

Your family?

Job?

Car?

House?

Perhaps having alone time, playing golf, going to the bar with friends, or enjoying a hobby.

You will always go out of your way to give precedence to what holds the most value to you.

If golf on Saturday mornings is important to you, you might skip a family gathering or some chores at home to go.

If money is tight, but all your friends are going to the bar and you just can’t miss it, you may not be able to buy all the things you need at the grocery store this week.

So, who is right and who is wrong?

What SHOULD be at the top of your value list?

The answer:

No one is right or wrong and no one can tell you what you should value most.

Most people would agree that family, a safe place to live, a steady job, and long term stability are at the top, but after that there is no right or wrong answer.

One person may love having a beautiful lawn and perfect landscape at their house, but drive a beat-up car that has 300k miles. Another may have a brand-new corvette that they wash and polish every weekend, but a yard with overgrown dead grass.

A couple may never have kids because they don’t want it to hinder their big yearly travel plans and the freedom of not having anyone else to worry about. Yet another couple may have 5 kids, live paycheck to paycheck, take no vacations, have no alone time, and still be happy and content with life.

What you value is 100% your choice.

When a person comes to me as a client it quickly becomes clear how much they value their health and fitness.

Just the fact that they start working with me obviously shows some value, but there are different levels and this varies person to person.

A person will keep putting in effort right up to the point of their perceived maximum value of that thing.

This varies most often with nutrition. Most people will get their workouts in, but the nutrition side of things is more up and down.

For example, let’s say PERSON A eats 100% on plan regardless of how challenging it is because their results are at the top of their value list. They are going to lose body fat, gain muscle, or reach whatever goal they have no matter how tough or frustrating it may be. Period.

It is non-negotiable.

PERSON B will stay on plan up to a point of convenience. Maybe that means sticking to their program Monday thru Friday, but going off on the weekend. Or perhaps that means doing well during the day, but not giving up that dessert or alcohol at night. They might even hit their daily calorie goals, but not come anywhere close to their protein requirement.

Neither PERSON A or B are wrong.

You could argue that one is healthier than the other and striving to be in better shape, but both are involved in fitness, eating better than most people, and simply have different levels of value placed on their body and the results they want from it.

My point is NOT to call any of you wrong.

Rather, I want to address you fitness complainers.

More specifically, those of you who are like PERSON 2, but with a twist.

Let me preface this by saying I don’t care if you don’t value fitness. That is your choice. If being overweight, having unhealthy body fat, being in pain, lacking muscle, not having endurance and so on is not important to you, fine. You have made a decision for your life, and while I may not agree with it, I don’t find pleasure in playing drill sergeant to people who have no interest in these things.

I also have no issue with people who choose to have fitness be a part of their lives, but are not looking for perfection. Being ripped and photo shoot ready year round is not something everyone cares about and I get that. I can respect a person who wants to fix their back or knee pain, increase mobility, get stronger, lose a little weight and generally feel healthy. You do not need to seek elite fitness for me to respect your goals.

The issue arises when a person wants elite results, but refuses to put in elite work.

It’s the phenomena of a person knowing deep down that they are NOT doing things 100% on plan, yet getting angry and frustrated when they don’t see the results that the person who has 100% compliance sees.

Often times these people lie to themselves to the point that they actually believe they are doing things as correctly as possible.

“I try to get enough protein, but it’s not possible”

“I get close to my calories, but I can’t quite get there”

“I’m not going to eat different meals than my family so I can’t eat healthy”

“My co-worker brought in cookies for their birthday and I won’t be rude and not have one”

“You don’t get it, I have to drink alcohol at work functions”

“But I was sick and you can’t eat on plan when you are sick”

And on, and on, and on….

The issue here is NOT that someone was under their protein goal by 30 grams, ate 200 calories too much, had a cookie for their co-worker’s birthday, or had a drink at a client meeting.

These are NOT the issues.

The issue is that the same people who are spewing this crap are also angry about not seeing awesome results.

You know who you are.

You go to the gym and eat pretty well, but also do things like the above examples. Then you whine and complain about why you don’t have a flatter stomach, more muscle, and can’t lose the weight you want.

It’s not going to happen.

And there is nothing wrong with that, but there IS something wrong with you getting upset over not seeing better results.

This is where value comes into play.

Remember how I said we all go out of our way to give precedence to what holds the most value to us?

That’s the real truth here.

If you are the person with the excuses, it’s simply because you don’t value better results than what you are currently getting.

It’s that simple.

Don’t even start to think “no I want to have a flat stomach or lose 10 pounds more than you know!”

You do?

Your weekly bar outings and meals out say otherwise.

So does your “forgetting to track your macros the last couple weeks” excuse.

“But Jon, I am literally trying as hard as I can and that has to be enough”

Let’s test that.

Say you are having a hard time giving much beyond 75% nutritional compliance. You don’t quite hit your calories, protein is too low, and perhaps carbohydrates are a bit high.

You claim it is the best you can do and even though you want to do better, you can’t. Life doesn’t allow you to.

What if I told you that if one day passed that you didn’t hit your nutrition goals that a loved one was going to die?

Do you REALLY think it would be that hard to hit some food goals in order to keep someone alive?

HECK NO. It would be easy because there would be immense value tied to hitting your goals.

Everyone is capable of staying on plan with both their nutrition and workouts, but they will only take themselves up to the point of the value they place on it.

Remember, there is NOTHING wrong with you not valuing fitness perfection, but you also must be okay with not seeing perfection level results.

Whatever goals you have, I would love to help you with them. I am a big proponent of sustainable health and fitness and want to get you set up with a program that will work for you long term.

Email me at: JwaltersPT@gmail.com

Or check out my website for more information at: www.JonWalters.CO