Fitness on Autopilot
Dec 26, 2025
Fitness on Autopilot
There are numerous aspects to moving towards a healthier and fit lifestyle, the primary two being right nutrition and regular exercise. Despite being the clear formula for lifetime fitness and maintaining a healthy weight, these two are made so much more complicated in today's context.
In the past
The older generations used to live a lifestyle which by default included long travels by foot and limited outlets to consume energy dense foods which is exactly the opposite of what we are having today.
Present
Today, the social setting is such that most of us are confined to our houses for recreational activities, and the availability of energy-dense junk food is abundant.
This influences us negatively in two ways -
Energy expenditure through body movements is minimal.
Energy intake is more than required.
Both of these factors work against us leading to an increased body weight and an inactive lifestyle which eventually leads to many diseases and limiting our potential to achieve our best, both mentally and physically.
All of us want to gain success in specific areas of life which comes only through clear focus and a healthy body. So, the focus gets shifted to achieve optimum health to carry out our day to day activities.
An individual decides to lose weight or practice healthy nutrition practices to achieve the larger goal of productivity and he/she gets exposed to the world of fitness seeing how people are maintaining their body through restrictive diet plans(energy in) and rigorous exercise sessions(energy out). Let's take a look in detail about these two aspects.
Energy in
Since our energy expenditure has gone down due to new transport mediums and a lack of physical exertion, along with ease of activities which were earlier used to be done through manual mode, our energy intake needs have also gone down.
But, with the onset of having adequate resources for lifestyle and food, we now have access to a plethora of junk foods which indeed increases our energy intake despite having an inactive lifestyle. Apart from this factor, we are also facing high mental stresses due to change in work environments and social settings.
Junk foods are made highly palatable with the use of layers of salt, fat, & sugar to influence our senses of taste and make us to mentally give in to binge eating these foods. Our brains get hijacked and we are no longer in our control. With the generous use of sugar, fat, & salt comes the side effect of excess calories eventually making us overweight and lethargic.
The famous way to overcome these effects is to “diet” which mostly relates to caloric restriction that too a severe one. Such caloric restrictions send a signal to our brain that food is in shortage, making the body hoard whatever available energy in the form of fat and using energy through muscles to be burned for bodily needs.
This negatively hits our metabolism by decreasing our metabolic energy needs. Once, dieting is over and we are back to eating normal foods with the same portions as earlier we gain body weight much faster in the form of more fat which diminishes our purpose by which we started dieting.
Energy out
To be fit we need to use the energy that is taken in by food. The formula for doing weight loss comes from the simple condition ie: energy out > energy in. but it has been made a tedious task due to lack of clarity provided by professionals practicing this field.
Many boundations are faced by laymen looking forward to starting a workout regime. Some of them are as follows:
Lack of clarity about different body parts and movements.
Boredom from repeating the same movements.
Time limitations, including travel time.
Non-availability of equipments.
Due to these factors many people start exercising but eventually give up, and their aim to get fit suffers. These things act as resistance to continue the exercises regularly.
The solution
The way out of this trap of going around typical dieting and workout plans is very simple.
One can workout at home with minimum props easily available like towel, table etc. different muscles and their movements can be learned which can be executed by self without depending on a trainer saving time and no more facing non availability of equipment. This school of training is called Bodyweight workout.
As far as diet is concerned, a simple formula of eating clean with three point thumb rule works wonders in achieving and sustaining weight loss:
Avoid ready to eat packed foods
Avoid fried foods
Avoid refined wheat flour .
By combining these two ways, an individual can achieve success in weight loss and sustain it long-term without compromising too much on any aspect of life.