The One Question That Kills a Bad Fitness Program
Every January my inbox fills up with the same heartbreak. Somebody bought a program. The website was slick, the before-and-afters were gorgeous, the promise was huge. Thirty days later they're cranky, hungry, a little ashamed, and exactly where they started. They want to know what's wrong with them.
Nothing is wrong with them. They got sold.
I'm not above this. I've bought the stupid stuff too. The get-ripped-fast schemes, the extreme protocols, the slick funnels that made me feel like THIS time was different. When I was younger and just wanted out of the pain of feeling like the fat kid, I'd try almost anything that promised to make me comfortable in my own skin. So if you've handed money to someone you later realized was full of it, you're in good company. Most people who've struggled with their weight have a graveyard of failed programs behind them. Marketers are very, very good at their jobs.
So let me give you a filter. There's one question that quietly kills almost every bad program before it can take your money:
Is this sustainable?
Here's why that question is so powerful. What it takes to ATTAIN a result is usually what it takes to SUSTAIN it. If the only way to hit the number is a brutal deficit and two workouts a day, then keeping the number means living in a brutal deficit and two workouts a day. Forever. Most of the flashy red flags people get burned by are just different costumes on the same problem: the approach can't last.
Let me show you how that one lens collapses a whole list of warning signs.
Extreme protocols and severe deficits. I once bought a meal plan from a well-respected coach. Good guy, real credentials. But every option topped out around 2,300 calories, and my maintenance sits north of 3,000. That plan would've put me in a thousand-calorie daily deficit. Of course I'd lose weight; I'd also lose muscle, tank my hormones, get miserable, and stall out fast as my body clamped down to protect itself. I asked for a refund. A severe deficit is generally anything more than 20 percent below your baseline, and I start most clients around 10 percent because I want the minimum effective dose, not the maximum punishment. Same logic with training. If you're doing nothing right now and you sign up for two 45-minute sessions a day for 75 straight days, that's extreme FOR YOU. Extreme is always relative to where you actually are. And extreme rarely survives contact with real life.
The magic bullet. "Just take this one supplement and change nothing else." Nothing changes if nothing changes. If there were a single thing that worked without effort, you'd hear it from everyone, not from your cousin's coworker's uncle. The fact that there are a thousand magic bullets on the market is the proof that none of them are magic. A real result is a process. It's iterative, it's systematic, and it's work.
Unbelievable results, unbelievably fast. "Six-pack abs in a month." "Tone your tush in ten days." This one makes me crazy. If it took ten years to get where you are, ten days isn't undoing it. Fast-loss schemes play the same game as get-rich-quick schemes; they find your pain, poke at it, and sell relief. A short win is fine as an on-ramp. I WANT my clients to feel momentum early. But there has to be a longer plan on the back end. There is no 28-day solution to health. There's a 28-week one, maybe a 28-year one.
Demonizing a macro. In the 90s, fat was the villain and we all crushed entire boxes of fat-free cookies while pretending the 150 grams of carbs didn't count. Now carbs are the villain. Your body has exactly three macronutrients to work with, and cutting one out makes a diet dramatically harder to stick to. Metabolic flexibility (being able to run on carbs OR fat without falling apart) is a strength. Dogma is a red flag. Extracting a simple rule from very complex science usually means someone skipped the science.
No customization and no credentials. One-size-fits-all is a lie, because we don't share injury histories, goals, stress loads, or maintenance calories. There should always be a path to personalize, and for real coaching there should be a free consult before you spend a dime. And six-pack abs on the seller's Instagram are not a credential. Genetics, filters, Photoshop, and other shortcuts exist. Looking the part is not the same as knowing the part. Trust, but verify.
You don't have to memorize a list of ten warning signs in the supplement aisle. You just have to run things through a few simple checks:
Ask for their sources, then actually check them. Ask about their credentials and training. Ask for references to real clients, then follow up and call them. Use your brain and stay skeptical; no honest coach has ever been offended by a good "why." And above all, ask: does this approach seem sustainable? Because what it takes to get there is what it takes to stay there.
One scope note before you go. This is general principle, not personal prescription. Your specific calories, deficit, and training load should be set with a qualified professional who actually knows your history.
If you've been burned before, you didn't fail. The program was never built to last. Pick one you can still be doing a year from now, and you've already beaten most of the field.
Listen to the full episode here.
If you want a plan built around your actual life instead of a template, that's the whole job at TCKB. Reach out through the coaching page and tell me where you're starting; I've never turned anyone away over money, and I'd rather point you somewhere honest than watch you buy another magic bullet.
Vokse eller dø. — Coach Jordan