How to Get Into the BEST Shape of Your Life Without Living in the Gym

The fastest way to ruin your fitness journey is to follow someone else's plan.

But here's the problem:

The mind craves complexity.

Without thinking about it, we seek more workouts, more supplements, more cardio, more everything.

When I was young and trying to get in shape, my fate was in the hands of fitness magazines and Instagram influencers. I was TOO inexperienced to trust my own instincts, so the path I was set on is the only one I knew.

That's where things start to go wrong.

We all know that more time in the gym doesn't equal better results.

We all know that perfect meal plans fall apart by Wednesday.

So we get stuck in this loop: try harder workout, feel overwhelmed, quit, try even harder workout, feel more overwhelmed, quit faster, and eventually, you end up so deep in a cycle of starting and stopping that it seems impossible to make lasting progress.

If your fitness approach is so effective, why do you have to constantly motivate yourself to follow it?

But here's the thing.

It's not as simple as finding a better program.

Especially if it's a program you're only following because some influencer with suspicious genetics is selling it. You don't have an iceberg of "whys" stacked under your fitness goals, so they're easy to abandon.

You've done this before. The fancy new program is motivating for a few days, but then you find yourself back in the same cloud of inconsistency you were trying to escape.

If you want to avoid living a life where fitness is an endless struggle, the solution is to equip your body with the right systems that work with your actual life, not against it.

Here's how you start:

You Need A Plan, But Not Like Most Plans

What you aim at determines what you see.

You need a plan.

There isn't any other way.

Because if you don't have one, the fitness industry does, and they've been planning your exercise routine for decades.

A plan is not a list of workouts that won't happen. It is an evolving blueprint that structures your life to make fitness progress inevitable, not optional.

The problem is that people conform to the workouts of influencers or magazine covers and stop there. They know that having a routine is a good thing, but they don't realize what a routine actually is.

Most people try to follow a workout plan for a beach body or social approval rather than the deep satisfaction that comes from building a strong, capable body that enhances your life instead of consuming it.

Why is this a problem? Because the fitness goals that compose your routine (and ultimately your identity) filter what you perceive as possible.

A person with the goal of spending 2 hours daily in the gym will not notice opportunities to create an efficient 45-minute workout.

A person with the goal of doing endless cardio won't notice the power of STRATEGIC strength training.

In both cases, each person could read the same fitness article and leave with completely different takeaways for how to implement the information.

The point is that we don't want complexity. We want simplicity.

We don't want more time exercising. We want better results from minimal effective effort.

We don't want to live in the gym, we want the gym to enhance our life, not consume it.

The Fitness Industry Wants You In The Gym 6 Days/Week

Let's get one thing straight:

I stay lean in only 3 hours/week.

And I spend more time:

1. In my businesses

2. With my family

3. Taking long naps

I spend less time:

1. Wasting time on a treadmill

2. Commuting to and from the gym

3. Buying shitty supplements

The fitness industry doesn't want you to know this is possible because their entire economic model depends on your confusion and complexity.

But your body doesn't care about complexity. Your body responds to consistency, progressive overload, adequate protein, and sufficient recovery.

That's it.

Everything else is just noise.

Your Minimalist Plan For Results

Don't learn endless fitness techniques.

Build a sustainable system.

Techniques, like fancy exercise variations, are practically useless in isolation.

A cohesive system is how you move toward the body you want.

If you want results, you must create the minimum effective dose, and obsessing over optimal workout splits while ignoring nutrition is a GUARANTEED way to become bitter about how hard you work and how little your body changes (calling myself out here).

But systems don't start out perfect. They become effective as you invest energy into them. This acts as a filter for people who can't overcome the fear of simplicity.

A system that increases in effectiveness consists of strategic workouts, straightforward nutrition, and sustainable lifestyle habits.

Here's what that looks like:

1) The Grocery List That Makes Everything Easier

• Eggs

• Salmon

• Spinach

• Avocado

• Chicken breast

• Sweet potatoes

• Steak (lean cuts)

• Grass-fed butter

• Lean ground beef

• White rice or quinoa

• Frozen mixed berries

• Whey protein (isolate)

• Greek yogurt (low or fat free)

• Cottage cheese (low or fat free)

• Your favorite hot sauce (for taste)

2) The No-BS Meal Plan

The goal: EASY and QUICK. And YUMMY.

I don't want to spend hours in the kitchen everyday. Unless I’m baking. That’s different.

Lucky for me (and you) you don't need to be a chef to make food that tastes good and gets the job done.

Shakshuka Protein Breakfast:

• 3 eggs poached in tomato sauce

• Bell peppers, zucchini and onions

• Spinach

• Feta cheese

• Slice of sourdough bread

Chicken & Rice:

• 6oz grilled chicken breast

• 1 cup jasmine rice

• 1 cup steamed broccoli

Salmon Dinner:

• 6oz baked salmon

• Roasted sweet potato

• 1 cup sautéed spinach

• Lemon and herbs

Post-Workout Smoothie:

• 1 scoop whey protein isolate powder

• 1 cup Fairlife milk

• 3 tbsp collagen peptides

• 1 cup blueberries

• ½ banana

3) The Snack Truth

Most people don't snack because they're hungry.

They snack because they're bored, stressed or dehydrated.

If you feel hungry, drink water.

If you still feel hungry, eat a high protein snack.

Easy-peasy lemon squeezy.

4) The Workout System

This is the exact training split I use to stay lean, build muscle, and still have a life outside the gym:

Day 1 - Strength & Power

• Barbell Squats

• Cable Chest Fly

• Kettlebell Swings

• Incline Dumbbell Bench Press

• Dumbbell Romanian Deadlifts

Day 2 - Metabolic Burn

• Deadlifts

• Walking Lunges

• Mountain Climbers

• Barbell Bent-Over Rows

• Dumbbell Goblet Squats

• Overhead Dumbbell Press

Day 3 - Hypertrophy & Conditioning

• Hip Thrusts

• Dumbbell Curls

• Tricep Pushdowns

• Flat Dumbbell Press

• Dumbbell Lateral Raises

Each workout takes exactly 60 minutes. That's 3 hours per week total.

5) The Lifestyle Stack That Makes Everything Work

• 5g of creatine daily

• 40g+ protein per meal

• Walk 7,000+ steps per day

• 30min+ of sunlight per day

• Get 7+ hours of sleep at night

• Drink water before every meal

• Block blue light 1 hour before bed

• Optional 10 min of meditation every day

Hunt For A Stack Of Reasons

There were a few big moments that changed my fitness approach for good.

It usually started with me realizing how much of my life I was sacrificing to look a certain way. I hated that. That realization alone made me want to search for reasons to build a better system.

You see, your mind is wired to hunt for efficiency. But the fitness industry profits from inefficiency.

They can trigger the same fear response from a "losing gains" threat as from an actual physical threat. A threat to your gym identity.

Since fitness goals compose part of your identity, someone who identifies as a "gym addict" will feel anxiety when they miss a workout.

They aren't under any real threat, but it feels like they are because their identity is threatened by the lack of adherence to their routine.

As you are recreating how you approach fitness in the pursuit of the body you want, your mind will start to change.

You will feel the tension of continuing to believe that more is always better.

Use that as an opportunity to actively search for reasons to make the change.

Read new fitness research. Consume information about recovery and minimum effective dose. Search for reasons to commit to efficiency, not excess.

It's all too common for people to quit 2 weeks after they start a new fitness program. Their mind searches for reasons it's too hard.

You need to do the opposite.

Search for reasons simplicity works better.

This can be as straightforward as studying successful minimalist fitness approaches or noticing how the busiest people you know who stay in great shape are rarely the ones living at the gym.

Make it difficult not to embrace efficiency.

Document Your Results

In my experience, those who track their progress consistently see dramatically better results than those who don't.

Today, we have something powerful.

Your phone.

You have access to free apps that can track every set, rep, and pound. You can take progress photos that show changes your mind might miss in the mirror. If you wanted to, you could create a complete picture of your fitness journey with minimal effort.

But the benefits of this documentation don't stop there.

What do you do with your fitness progress once you achieve it?

Do you just enjoy it privately and hope it motivates you to continue?

Or did you set out on this path to create lasting change?

When you document your journey, you create accountability with yourself that exceeds motivation.

Beyond that, you create evidence that your approach works.

The best way, in my opinion, to drastically increase your chances of fitness success is to document your journey where you can review it regularly.

Share your workouts, meals, and progress with someone, even if it's just yourself from yesterday.

Turn your fitness approach into a system you can replicate when motivation inevitably fades.

When you track your progress objectively, you don't need to question whether your approach is working or not. The data will tell you.

If progress stalls, which it will at times, good. You've identified a problem that you couldn't if you were to keep ignoring the numbers.

Thank you for reading.

If this approach resonates with you, share it with someone who will resonate.

Most will continue to overcomplicate.

I hope you choose simplicity.

Love ya,

Simi