Don’t do 30 Day Fitness Challenges

Patience is a virtue. However, it is a virtue that modern day life often does not afford us. To say that we live life in the fast-lane is an understatement. The human race has been incredible in progressively building a world that is optimised for efficiency. With the click of a mouse you can have products sent from the other end of the world to your doorstep, entertainment is streamed directly into your home for mass consumption, and social media provides bite sized dopamine hits to constantly indulge in. The speed at which the world moves is increasing exponentially.

I for one love the conveniences that come along with our modern world. As a lazy person by default, I embrace the ease at which things can be achieved. However, with this adaptation to convenience, our brains have become rewired to expect EVERYTHING to be able to be achieved quickly. No matter how much biohacking you indulge in, the same is not true when it comes to weight loss, health and fitness.

Unfortunately, this mental adaptation to convenience has left us with a blindspot when it comes to advertising solutions for long term problems. Savvy marketers in the fitness industry know this too well, and use every trick in the book to take advantage of this. From fit-teas to waist trainers, there are plenty of products that influencers are willing to shill that promise quick results. While I imagine most people have the critical thinking skills to not buy into “5 min abs and booty” routines, there’s a pretty strong argument to be made that 30 day fitness transformation challenges aren’t much better.

Enter the Transformational Specialist

Social media has seen the emergence of the fitness transformation specialist. Their business model piggybacks off our desire for quick results, albeit using a slightly extended time frame as a means of side stepping some of the flaws that more obvious “quick-fix” products have. Most of us realise that getting fit and healthy requires effort, and spending 4 to 6 weeks pushing yourself hard may seem like a reasonable timeframe.

The truth is, you CAN make a noticeable change in this time period, but this is the most sensitive period of the habit forming process, and transformation challenges are missing some valid elements to create permanent change.

The business model of a “transformation specialist” is quite brilliant in how simple yet effective it is. Let me lay it out for you. Odds are you are drawn to their business by their social media. They display incredible “before and after photos” of their clients interspersed between content focusing on their own physique and motivational messages.

Whether by design or chance, it presents your brain with the idea that this transformation is the first step towards the lifestyle of this jacked and shredded trainer. The motivational messages are enough for you to want to be one of those success stories… and to think, it's only a month away.

Add to cart. Confirm Purchase. Nutrition and exercise for the next 30 days emailed to you.

The Magic of 1400 Calories and High Frequency Exercise.

While the transformation challenge may differ from one product to the next, they all boil down to two major factors - a huge calorie reduction paired with some kind of movement. Truth be told, these low calorie diets are enough to make you lose weight, the exercise hopefully acts as enough of a stimulus to help you build a little bit of muscle. If you have training experience, it most likely won’t build muscle, but if you’ve lived a sedentary lifestyle it is possible to recompose your body by building muscle and losing fat at the same time.

Now, you signed up for this challenge, so you’ve mentally prepared yourself to be uncomfortable. It’s only a month after all, you can push through this. You stand in front of the mirror, snapping shots of what will eventually be your “before” pictures. You stick to the meal plan and over the weeks, the weight begins to melt away. You’re tired, but seeing these changes keeps you motivated, keeps you chasing after it. 20 days in and people are starting to notice the change and comment on it. You’re always hungry, but the compliments keep you going. It’s difficult, but It’s called a challenge for a reason. You stick to the exercise, you stick to the diet. The end is in sight. You’ve been planning that celebratory meal on day 31 this whole month, the thought of not eating bland broccoli, chicken breast and rice is enough for you to make your way to the final stretch. Boom, day 30 is here. Transformation complete.

You find yourself in your bathroom again, phone in hand ready to take some progress photos. You’re exhausted, hungry but wow! Are those some visible ab lines? You compare your before and after photos and are impressed with the transformation. All this in a month. You post them to social media, tagging your “transformation coach” and write some enlightened captions about working hard and feeling better than you ever have. #fitness.

The Transformation Coach Business Model - Client Turn Over

Here’s the part of the transformation coach’s business model that people are often not privy to- they are designed around client volume. They are usually reasonably priced, and this is by design. The term “churn rate” describes a business rate of gaining and losing members. As long as they are gaining more than they are losing, they are effectively a profitable business. A 30 day transformation challenge is short, so that it is planned for you to be in and out of their system. However, by leveraging social media and cherry picking transformation photos that they are tagged in, you are producing marketing material for these fitness professionals. All it takes is for your transformation to sell 1 or 2 more people into their system and your role in their business is complete. You are expendable once the challenge is over because these coaches have no interest in creating lasting results, they are only interested in running the same, unsustainable fitness and nutrition program over and over again to as many people as possible. This is a great way to make a load of cash with very little effort, especially when coupled with a large social media following.

The Aftermath - What Now?

Most people don’t fail to lose weight, they fail to keep it off. There are two reasons for this. Firstly, the body does not like being in a catabolic state in which it is burning fat for energy. We are much more efficient at using food for energy, and while our fat is a storage mechanism for if we don’t have access to food, food will always be an easier source of energy. So your body is looking to replace what it has lost and triggers hunger, cravings, and the ability to now over eat.

The second, and more influential element, is habit. The brain works by finding the path of least resistance to perform an action. These series of actions are known as “chunks” and refer to when we autonomously carry out an action. They are developed through repetition, until our brains eventually decide that it is easier to just go into autopilot to achieve a task. This is far more efficient than constantly stopping to think about how to do something. This is how a habit, and eventually a behaviour, is formed. 

In order to maintain a transformation long term, nutrition and exercise need to become a habit. If you sought out a 30 day transformation, odds are you’ve spent years, if not decades, developing the habits that lead you to wanting to change the way you look. Because your brain always wants to take the path of least resistance when it comes to behaviours, and you’ve redlined your will power getting through your 30 day challenge, once the end has come you are most likely going to slide back into your old habits.30 days may be enough to see change, but it certainly isn’t enough to keep it. Most people will find within 1-6months they have returned to their starting point. Sometimes these people decide to jump back into the same challenge, or something similar, and repeat the cycle indefinitely, effectively spinning their wheels and going nowhere.

A 2009 study published in the European Journal of Social Psychology of Social Psychology concluded that it takes 18-254 days to form a habit. But don’t let the low end of that range mislead you into thinking that a 30 day challenge might be enough, because the same study also concluded that it takes 66 days on average for these habits to transition into behaviours that are automatic. 

A Better Way

When it comes to fitness, most people go too hard, too fast. They try to restrict and add too many new things in a condensed time period. A lifestyle change is a slow burn and needs to be nurtured. Introducing positive habits, one at a time, will inevitably stack up into behaviour that supports a sustainable positive lifestyle change. One of the reasons I created The Becoming Unkillable online coaching system was to provide a long term solution for those looking to transform their body while ensuring that it can be easily incorporated into busy lifestyles. It has an emphasis on time, recovery, and slowly progressing your strength training journey. This ensures that over time, not only will you achieve the transformation you are after, that transformation will be set in stone. But I’m not here to just sell you another program, but rather to give you this take away - fitness cannot be rushed. Whether we are looking to lose weight, build muscle or get stronger, consistency is your key to success. Don’t walk before you can crawl, put in place small, achievable goals over a long timeline to form behaviours that lead to success. Good luck.