If you’ve ever asked yourself “What in the world is wrong with my body?”, you are not alone. In The Powerful Athlete, we've heard this question many times.

Most people ask themselves this when they've tried different diet plans to lose weight and nothing seems to work, or when they aren’t doing anything different, but they’ve started to pile on pounds or inches.

Do you feel a glimpse of hope when you get an email or see something on your social media about an amazing, guaranteed-to-work product for losing fat and getting thin? “See the pounds fall right off" reads the headline.  If so, you may be hoping to find a magic pill that gets you to that dream place where you feel healthy, slim, and full of energy.

There is no magic pill, of course, but the good news is: there’s probably nothing “wrong” with your body! 

Instead, one of these things could be happening:

If you’re aiming to reach your weight in high school, you have unrealistic expectations. If you want to burn fat or build muscle but are doing strictly cardio, you have unrealistic expectations. If you took 15 years to gain 50 pounds and now you want to lose them in 4 months, you have unrealistic expectations. And if you want to look like your friend who has a different body type than you, you have unrealistic expectations.  

You're setting yourself up for failure if you have unrealistic expectations.

Action Plan for Step #1: Get real! Establish realistic goals.

2nd: You’re copy-pasting instead of having a personalized nutrition and exercise strategy

You may be following general advice such as “ In order to burn more calories, you need to do cardio”.  Or you’re on a certain diet (keto, intermittent fasting, etc.) because your friend or someone in your family did, and it worked great for them. Key words here: for them.

A study by Rachel Freire states that in recent years, new dietary strategies have become very popular but many of them are based on personal impressions and reports published in magazines rather than on scientific evidence.

Some ways in which you're different from your friend and the reasons why her plan may  not work for you include:

• You may have a hormonal imbalance or an illness that needs to be addressed
• Your body has a different carb tolerance or sensitivity to fats, so your P:F:C (protein:fat:carb) percentages  need to be different
• You have more fast-twitch or more slow-twitch muscle fiber: you can't burn a lot of fat doing an exercise program that's designed for the opposite type of muscle
• Your body’s ability to repair and recover from exercise might be different (you may need to exercise less and rest more for better results)
• ·You may have a genetic predisposition for increased vitamins such as vitamin D, B6, B12, and Folate
• ·Your appetite genes may be more active than other people's

Action Plan for Step #2: Stop doing what your friend did and implement a nutrition and exercise program that’s exclusive to you. You are unique. Your body is unique; your diet and exercise need to be custom-designed!

3rd. You try to make too many changes at once, run into roadblocks, and gravitate right back to your old habits.

From how you shop for groceries to how often you eat out, there are many different elements to consider and believe me, even good planning and commitment don’t mean that you should try to change everything, and certainly not everything at once. Instead of going from zero to 100 (and then, almost inevitably back to zero), focus on making really small changes first, even 1%, to your nutrition and fitness plan. 

Action Plan for Step #3:  Focus on one simple habit at a time.

Something as simple as drinking a glass of water the moment you get out of bed could be a good first step. Take care of your mind and body, little by little. Remember: the way to move a mountain is by carrying away small stones.

And now, a few more tips:

• There is no rule that says that you have to buy every new diet book or try every single fat-loss product on the market.
• Health and energy come when you appreciate yourself and acknowledge that you are worth it. Shower self-love on YOU. You are worth going through a process of change, and this requires changes at the mental and emotional levels.
• Don’t go bashing your body.  There is nothing "wrong" with it! It will be with you every single day of your life. Love and appreciate yourself and your body.