Yesterday a friend hit me up on Facebook. She has two kids under 5 years old and hasn't worked out regularly since before the first one. She says she does Zumba about once a week. She wanted to know what she should do to start getting back into shape. In my head I was like, well she needs to start lifting immediately. Also she's certainly going to have to get to Zumba or some other high intensity type class at least 3x/week. And then she would need to add in 1-2 days of low intensity cardio. You know for recovery and stuff. And obviously she's going to need to become a keto-vegan.
This would be an excellent plan for her provided she either quits her job or gives up her children. (They're cute and all but....GAINS!!! Know what I'm saying.) This is the price to pay to get back into shape.
Hopefully it's clear I'm being facetious.
This is not the advice that I gave her. The advice I gave her was to try to make her way to Zumba 2-3x/week. I told her if she could consistently do that for a month or two then she could start thinking about adding in some lifting weights. That's it.
That's it?
Yep. Oh you want to why? Got it.
The reason for ditching the plan I came up with in my head isn't because it isn't a good plan (maybe except for the keto-vegan diet, I'm not sure that's actually a thing). I ditched it because it's probably to good for her (right now anyway). This is a case of more isn't better. It would've been too overwhelming and I'm pretty sure she needs her job and loves her children.
Suggesting she just up her Zumba gives her a chance to get used to working out more. This will be good for her physical well-being but also her life well-being. Working out more means giving less time to something else. You need to prepare for this.
What if just two extra Zumba workout sessions is too easy? Well it's easy to add stuff on. It's much harder to take things away. Taking stuff away from people is psychologically difficult for them. You're basically telling them they weren't good enough for all they were given. On the other hand, adding on stuff is a reward. Who doesn't like a reward.
So basically my advice for most people (after I go over the super plan in my head) is to just do a little be more than you were doing before. This is super boring. Whenever I give this advice people are like "that's it?" (like you did above.) People expect it to be more complicated. Here's the thing though, it's not. Most long term success is super boring.
So if you're just getting started again, do a little more than you've been doing. Once you've done that consistently, add a little bit more. Then rinse and repeat.
