Have I been doing it all wrong?

Full disclosure: I am not an expert of physical fitness (actually, of any kind).  I am  merely a purveyor of various fitness blogs and the occasional “clicker” of Facebook ads promising to give me six-pack abs and a booty you could bounce a quarter off of.

And I’m starting to notice something.  Something very peculiar, confusing and to be quite honest, infuriating.  There’s no consensus!  No one agrees on how to get your best body.  How to get that quarter a bouncin’!

You’ve got your squats, deadlifts, lunges, <insert any soul-sucking butt exercise here>.  You’ve got your stairmill, treadmill, elliptical <insert any soul-sucking cardio machine here>.

But how many sets?  How much weight?  How many prayers to the exercise gods that you’ll survive the next rep?  Light weight, heavy weight, moderate weight and my favorite…no weight. ** Actually, I’m probably the only one who considers this one a viable option.

Too much cardio.  Not enough lifting.  Too much lifting.  Not enough cardio.  HIIT.  30 minutes of steady increased heart rate. 7-minute abs.  And WHY haven’t you started your supplements?  The ones you take before your workout.  And then during your workout.  And then after your workout.  And then when you’re planning your next workout.  And then when you’re posting pics of your swole quadriceps on Facebook.

If you do enough perusing you will find a highly believable “expert” who will support any or all of the above exercise conditions promising that with commitment and consistency your dreams will come true and unicorns will make you protein pancakes in the morning.

I don’t know about you but these ever changing “rules” from the so-called experts of physical fitness are enough to make my motion sick-prone head to start spinning.  What happened to the good old days of pounding out a steady 30 minutes on the treadmill followed by some bicep curls and a few squats?  The modern day answer to what our ancestors did?  Except they were spending all day cutting down gigantic wheat fields and suffering from diphtheria.  It’s almost the same.

Help me, friends.  As I head to the gym with Season 4 of Vampire Diaries queued up on Netflix, share with me your advice.  I humbly accept.  However, if your advice consists of anything longer than 3 minutes on a stairmill, giant weighted ropes or any form of an abdominal machine, kindly move on.

In friendship,

Mindy