“As a consequence of your dedication and discipline, you learn how to make good choices and be 'free'”

There’s a lot of talk about tracking calories, journalling food, excessive training. Things that help you reach your goals, but also have the potential to hinder other aspects of your life. People often view them as obsessive or disordered behaviours.

Yes, while some people may obsess over the tiny details and suffer from orthorexia or other behavioural/eating disorders, I think it’s safe to say the majority of people are on the other end of the spectrum.

There’s a lack of order there.

There’s a lack of discipline.

A lack of consistency.

People claim they want to be free with their food choices. They want to eat intuitively. “I don’t want to track, I just want to eat”.

But here’s the truth: discipline creates freedom.

When you exercise discipline with your eating and training, you learn how to create freedom. As a consequence of your dedication and discipline, you learn how to make good choices and be “free”.

You learn how everything works.

You learn how to achieve your results.

It’s like picking up a guitar. Everyone wants to smash out a cool solo or strum along to their favourite song straight away – that’s the fun stuff!

But you have to suck for a while.

You have to get past the shitty learning stage where your fingers don’t follow where your brain tells them to go. You have to make mistake after mistake and learn from them.

And as a reward of your discipline, you get to play. Not just play like a robot though. If you stick at it long enough, you get to really play. You get to be free.

I can only imagine how many people gave up guitar before they even learned the basics, though. Learning something isn’t always fun. Sucking at something isn’t always fun.

It’s the same with nutrition and exercise. How many times have you given up in the past when things weren’t moving as fast as you liked? Or when things were hard at the start?

You can’t expect to belt out a solo with your nutrition if you haven’t learned how to play a simple C-chord.

Think of a solo as eating intuitively, you can pick and choose foods that serve you without even thinking. A C-chord is knowing what macronutrients are. It’s the basics. You need to know them. You need discipline.

I’ve said it before, you don’t need to count calories to achieve amazing results.

But should you know what calories are? Probably.

Should you know what are good sources of carbs, proteins and fats? It’ll help.

Should you know what training style is best for your goals? Of course.

I gained the most freedom I’ve ever had with my nutrition after the period of most discipline.

I tracked for 100 days straight and learned everything there is to know about my body’s response to certain foods, the amount of food I was eating and everything in between.

You don’t have to commit to 100 days of discipline. Start with 7 days, see what you learn and build on it from there. I’ve even got a 7-day All-Access Pass in my Steel Transformation Academy for this very reason.