Lessons on Fitness & Nutrition from Monday Night Football

Have YOU ever watched a sporting event on television and ended up learning something to help you succeed with your fitness and nutrition goals? I did! Let me explain.

Before I begin, my apologies to my foreign friends about my reference to football. In THIS blog post, I’m referring to the American version of football (with the pointy ends of the ball). OK, so here is what I learned. While watching Monday Night Football, I noted that the team the is more successful is typically the one that has a methodical approach to their offense and scoring points. That is, they made small but steady advances down the field until they were within scoring range. Only then did the try to score. Oh sure, there were several “hail mary” attempts made from far away. However, most often these attempts were unsuccessful or were thwarted by the defense.

So how does this translate to my goals for fitness and nutrition? Let me start with the “hail mary”. Raise your hand if you have ever tried one of the crazy diets? You know, the diet where you eat cabbage only for six days, followed by pineapple juice, and then…..you get my meaning right? Those diets are simply unsustainable and likely will not produce the long-lasting results you desire. So what about fitness. Raise your other hand if you have ever started on an exercise regimen that was WILDLY ambitious and made you so sore after one workout that you could not walk, stand or even put on socks without being in pain. If both of your hands are up, then you are in the same company as me. The point? These hail mary attempts at fitness & nutrition are WILD….CRAZY…and frankly most often unsuccessful as well as unsustainable.

Compare this with the team in football the advanced towards their goal with small “gains”. The parallel in fitness and nutrition would be a reasonable workout routine that is repeatable and within your ability. Similarly, when looking at your nutrition finding a collection of meals that you can mix up and keep the defense off balance….allowing you to move towards your goal.

Consider the fitness items your “running plays” (methodical but with a mix of flash now and again). Now imagine your nutrition as your “passing plays” where you can make gains faster and with greater gains than simply by running the ball (exercising).

Scoring in fitness and nutrition can be a regular event for you. However, your “play book” has to be well thought out. Your game plan against your opponent requires that you have a strategy and the tactics well-rehearsed.

When you look at the most successful teams over any extended period of time, it is NOT the team that relied on the “hail mary”. Instead it was the team that did the basic things very well…and repeatedly during every game.

Unfortunately, our fitness and nutrition are not a game. While there are winners (those who achieve great health through fitness and good nutrition) ….there are also too many losers (those who risk their health and suffer with disease and illness due in large part to an inconsistent approach towards fitness and shoddy nutrition).

Simply put, few of us can pull off the Hail Mary and achieve near-term success. Far fewer of us can sustain the success achieved through near term

In the words of the John Wooden, the famous and VERY successful coach at UCLA he said "Do not let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do." My translation: Stop wasting your time with hail mary actions. Do what you CAN do…do it regularly…and do it well!