Why does fitness have to be so complicated?

Whether you’re trying to lose weight or build muscle, you don’t have to do anything special. I’m surely biased, but I can confirm that things look much easier once the ball is already rolling. That’s the whole point: we often wait for the perfect conditions to take the first step, whether it’s getting back into fitness, starting a business, or writing a blog article.

Spoiler: you’ll never find yourself in the perfect position to take the first step. It’s either day one, or one day.

So, the tough part is getting that ball rolling. When it comes to fitness, it might be even worse. Nowadays, we have access to too much information, and anyone on the internet can declare themselves an expert and start spreading often misleading information.

Now, unless you’re a professional athlete – in that case, you’re probably on the wrong page – you just must follow a couple of simple rules:

• Eat well (and we could debate for days on what good nutrition is).

• Sleep well.

• Train well.

Is it really that easy?

I’m probably simplifying the equation, but I do think most fitness professionals focus too much on small details that put people on the wrong path, using difficult scientific words that really mean nothing. In the era of accessible information, it is your choice to be ignorant. On the other hand, there is too much information online, and it’s often difficult to understand who you should listen to.

Let’s dive deeper.

EAT WELL.

I believe it shows wisdom to step back and acknowledge when you don't know enough. I’m not a nutritionist, and I’m far from being a food expert. I’m just a young man who loves cooking good food, and what I see in this country is a tendency to overcomplicate cooking. Because at the end of the day, what you need on your plate is just some protein, veggies, and some simple carbs. It takes 5 minutes to grill some meat or fish and boil some veggies. The trick is to make things fun, and trust me, a steak and a good salad taste bloody good.

What my competencies allow me to do is to give some sort of nutritional advice to my clients. I like to think of myself as an educator, and as an Italian, I often find myself educating my clients to live a slower life and to take it easy.

One of the first things I say during my first sessions is “Start cooking” and “Go to the market.” I walk to the market every Saturday morning to buy bread and fish. It might sound boring as f*ck – for those who don’t know me personally, I’m a 65-year-old trapped in a 25-year-old body – but that’s the highlight of my week. I chat with the fishmonger, ask him about the catch, where they got it, how the sea was, suck an oyster from the shell, and walk back to my flat to cook it.

Can you ask the cashier at Sainsbury's how the sea was when they caught the cod you're buying? No, you can't.

So what does “good nutrition” actually mean?

Real food. Nothing pre-made. The first step to understanding your nutrition is to read the labels when you’re in the shop. If the ingredients list has more than 5 names (I would say 3, but let’s make it 5) that you’ve never heard of, I would leave it on the shelf.

Most of the confusion in nutrition comes from individual influencers and diet cults that go to war with each other. Meanwhile, I know that for you sitting at home, your biggest nutrition problem is probably that you eat too many biscuits, have takeaways on the weekends, go for a few drinks, and then your dietary discipline isn't exactly on point the next day. You’re time-poor, you’re not sure how to cook healthy meals, maybe you don't know where to get protein or fibre, and so on. These are practical barriers that emerge from the interaction between you, the modern food environment, and the way we live. So do yourself a favour and ignore diet gurus.

Mind you, I said I’m not a nutritionist. This is just my opinion. If you want to eat fish fingers for the rest of your days, go for it. I don’t really give a shit.

SLEEP WELL.

I’ll keep this one short. I bet you’ve heard this before: sleep between 6 and 9 hours per night. I would say that the closer to 9, the better. If you manage to fall asleep and wake up at the same time every day, your mental health will thank you.

And by the way, it's scientifically proven that your phone is killing your sleep. So when you’re in bed scrolling through cat reels, ask yourself, 'Do I really need this?' If you feel like a truck just hit your face when you wake up in the morning, try swapping the phone with a book and see if that makes a difference. And if it doesn’t work, remember—reading a book never killed anyone.

TRAIN WELL.

The missing piece of the equation: training, movement, exercise, or however you want to call it. The nature of the activity doesn’t really matter. Movement is movement, whether it’s a walk, a jog, a session with weights, or a bloody ironman. Again, if you’re not an athlete and you’re just trying to be healthy, you should just start moving.

I work in a commercial gym, and my training style is based around weights. For decades, the weight area has been demonized, and as a coach, it’s so relieving to see that more and more health professionals recommend weight training from a young age.

From a psychological perspective, it’s amazing what an hour or so of lifting heavy stuff and pulling unattractive faces can do for your mind. And I’ll tell you what, if you had a shit day at work and you’re driving home, when the last thing you want to do is go to the gym, that’s exactly when you should get your ass in there.

Your wellbeing doesn’t have to be complicated. It’s about making small, sustainable changes and focusing on the basics: eating well, sleeping well, and training well. Don't let the overwhelming amount of information out there discourage you. Start simple, stay consistent, and watch how these changes can transform not just your body, but your entire lifestyle.

If you enjoyed this article and would like to discuss it further, drop me a DM. Let’s have a chat about your fitness journey and how we can get that ball rolling together.