How To Easily Get in Shape: 3 Ways To Lose Weight Fast (Without A Gym)
The forced closures of gyms during the 2021 Pandemic exposed the bloated fitness industry harder than perhaps anything ever before.
Market leaders & fitness “influencers” that had flooded the space with fad diets, supplements, & exercise programs for decades had to concede defeat as their “solutions” were suddenly ineffective for a stay-at-home population.
Unsurprisingly, the demand for home fitness solutions exploded as individuals attempted to lose weight and build muscle without their gym memberships and equipment. The fitness culture dedicated to mirror selfies, gym machines, and worthless supplements felt the sting as the population was forced to adapt back to the timeless methods of health & wellness.
And although many experienced these growth pains, there were some that didn’t feel the sting of change at all: the U.S. military.
The question I always like to ask to unbelievers of fitness simplicity is especially important here: how does the U.S. military turn overweight individuals into a fit fighting force in as little as 6 to 12 weeks depending on the branch of service?
It certainly doesn’t do it with gym memberships, fad diets, or supplements. And it doesn’t require a nutrition or exercise degree to understand or implement.
Three Ways The Military Uses To Lose Weight (Without A Gym)
1. The Military Uses Movement To Lose Weight Without A Gym
The first time any recruit gets off the bus at bootcamp, he learns his first lesson: you are going to move with a purpose and use your legs everywhere.
That doesn’t necessarily mean running.
In fact, you tend to run less than you do walking or drilling. However, you walk everywhere. Training? Walk to the training hall. Chow three times a day? Walk to the galley or chow hall. Back to your barracks? Walk to the barracks. You have no transportation besides your legs, and no matter how far any of the buildings are on base, you have only one method to get there.
The undeniable fact, and one that is starting to (finally) become emphasized in fitness is this: walking anywhere from 5,000 to 10,000 steps a day is scientifically proven to lower blood pressure and reduce visceral fat (belly fat) in those that implemented daily walking into their habits.
Often what happens when we fall off the health wagon and need to get back on is that we start with drastic solutions. I’ve been guilty of this in the past. We implement hard nutrition changes, detoxes, juice cleanses, and other unsustainable methods that make us hate eating. We implement long workouts or cardio sessions that we don’t enjoy, and then we wonder why we always fall off.
The simple matter is, and one that the military understands completely, is that increasing our steps is fundamental to improving our health and our overall body composition. If you don’t move, you don’t improve.
Walking everyday might not seem very impactful, but imagine what an extra 1,825 miles in a year looks like to your health?
This insanely effective solution helps members to easily begin their weight loss journey without a gym.
2. The Military Uses Bodyweight Exercises To Lose Without A Gym
Using a gym on base is an exclusive privilege for officers, drill instructors, and enlisted members that have already graduated from bootcamp – not for recruits.
So how then do they lose weight without access to gym equipment?
The military understands that your body is your own gym. A tougher, unrelenting one at that.
In fact, it’s easier to go to a gym and chest press 10 pound dumbbells on a bench, then it is to get on the ground and press 70% of your bodyweight up in a pushup. Many recruits struggle to complete even a few.
The Big Five, as I call them, consist of Pushups, Pullups, Squats, Situps, and Planks. These compound movements require mastery of your own bodyweight, balance, agility, and endurance. Used in quick succession one after the other in a grueling circuit by your drill instructors? Well, now you have a complete full body workout.
That’s not even factoring in sprints, burpees, boxing, flutterkicks, rope climbing, and other methods of bodyweight training. I can take any gym bro in any facility and put him through a workout that would cause him to puke in under 20 minutes. And I can do that to myself as well.
Fundamentally, a gym is simply an equipment rental business that allows you to rent out equipment without training or accountability (unless you pay a lot of money for it). But even if you pay for personal training, there is a stark difference between gym (athletic) training and military training. Even the historical Greek militaries understood that sport training and military training were completely different:
From Plutarch’s Life of Philopoimen: They told him (and it was the truth) that the habit of body and mode of life for athlete and soldier were totally different, and particularly that their diet and training were not the same, since the one required much sleep, continuous surfeit of food, and fixed periods of activity and repose, in order to preserve or improve their condition, which the slightest influence or the least departure from routine is apt to change for the worse; whereas the soldier ought to be conversant with all sorts of irregularity and all sorts of inequality, and above all should accustom himself to endure lack of food easily, and as easily lack of sleep.
On hearing this, Philopoimen not only shunned athletics himself and derided them, but also in later times as a commander banished from the army all forms of them, with every possible mark of reproach and dishonour, on the ground that they rendered useless for the inevitable struggle of battle men who would otherwise be most serviceable.
Training for bigger muscles and bigger lifts at a gym might be a fun hobby or athletic pursuit, but it is ill-suited for real life, every day situations. It is ill-suited for combat, and it does not prepare you for anything requiring maximum endurance. It also can indirectly take more time for an individual to lose weight than if they had accountability, nutrition plan, and a bodyweight exercise regimen.
The simply, yet effective, use of bodyweight exercises provides a convenient, cost-effective way to help members lose weight without a gym.
3. The Military Uses Macro Nutrition To Lose Weight Without A Gym
Outside of the military, it’s easy to get caught up in the latest diet fad making the rounds. And with so many to choose from these days, it can be remarkably easy to fall into the various ‘tribes’ defending their particular diet plan against the rest. But in the military, that doesn’t happen.
Why? There are a couple reasons.
First, its members are from all walks of life and all manner of eating styles and preferences. It would be impractical to try and accommodate all diets and methods of eating. Second, trying to eliminate one or more macronutrients (like many diets do), would cause energy, hormone, or strength issues.
Without adequate protein, there is a substantial loss of muscle and strength and more hunger. Without adequate fats, hormones and important bodily functions suffer. Without adequate carbohydrates, energy levels suffer and stress increases. Therefore, the military provides all three macronutrients at meal times to accommodate what every human body needs.
Additionally, mandatory hydration is required at every meal time, and outside meal times via each individual’s canteen.
By providing a constant supply of hydration, and set meal times with portion-controlled macronutrients, the macro nutrition that the military uses can easily help members to lose weight without a gym.