Progress Is Not Born From Sustainability

Balance gets a lot of praise. Sustainability too.

Your doctor talks about it. Fitness influencers preach it. Nutrition experts build entire careers around it. And on paper, it sounds right. Reasonable. Mature. Safe.

Here is the problem.

Every person I know who has gotten somewhere I want to go did not get there through balance.

I did not lose 85 pounds through balance. I did not change my trajectory by easing gently into a slightly better version of the same life. Weight loss, by definition, is imbalance. A calorie deficit is controlled deprivation. Mild starvation does not sound sustainable because it is not meant to be.

Yet this is where people get shamed.

Too extreme.
Too obsessive.
Too much.

Here is the truth that rarely gets said out loud.

Progress almost always begins with imbalance.

Life works more like a pendulum than a straight line. You do not drift into change. You swing into it. You care too much. You invest too much time. You say no to things that once felt normal. You get out of balance on purpose.

Why?

Because you are already out of balance. Just in the wrong direction.

You did not wake up one day and suddenly feel disconnected from yourself. It happened slowly or all at once, but either way, you ended up somewhere unfamiliar. Somewhere uncomfortable. Somewhere you do not want to stay.

And yet we are told the solution is moderation.

That message usually comes from people who are already far down the road. People who have done the hard part. People who once burned with urgency and now speak calmly about balance because they can afford to.

What often gets forgotten is how they started.

Intensity is for the gaining, consistency is for the maintaining.

They were sick and tired of being sick and tired.
They burned it down.
They rebuilt.

Only later, much later, did they learn how to pull the reins back.

That part matters. But it is not the starting line.

I can say this from experience. There were many things I did early on that I no longer do. Things that, in hindsight, were not practical or sustainable long term.

I do not regret them for a second.

Those choices taught me I was stronger than I thought. They forced me to burn bridges to places I never wanted to return to. They created separation from an old identity that had run its course.

Balance came later.

And that is the part no one tells you.

You do not have to do this forever.

It is easier to dial things back than it is to create momentum from nothing. It is easier to train less once training is part of who you are. It is easier to walk a moderate number of steps after you have proven you can walk an unreasonable number for months. It is easier to reintroduce foods once they are no longer your emotional crutch.

Intensity creates leverage.

So no, this path is not for everyone.

If you are content, stable, and moving forward in a way that feels right, that is genuinely excellent.

But if you know you are stuck, if you feel the quiet frustration of wanting more and living less, then maybe balance is not your problem.

Maybe the problem is that you have been tempering yourself for too long.

So here is to the ones willing to go all in.
The ones willing to look unreasonable.
The ones wild enough to bet on themselves and burn the boats.

Put on your headphones. Drown out the noise. Commit to the change.

Balance will be there later.

And when you finally find it, it will mean something.

If this idea resonates, do not file it away as motivation.

Use it.

Pick one thing you have been half-committing to and go all in on it for a defined season. Not forever. Just long enough to create momentum. Long enough to break the old pattern. Long enough to prove something to yourself.

If you are ready to start building real traction in your health and fitness you can take action by booking your No Sweat Intro (at no cost) to learn more about training at Elevate Health & Performance.

And if you want a deeper dive into this exact idea, I highly recommend Jonathan Goodman’s new book, Unhinged Habits, which happened to be released today. It challenges the same comfortable narratives around balance and exposes how real change is often built through intentional imbalance before it is ever refined.

Read it. Apply it. Then later, when the time is right, earn the privilege of balance.

For now, bet on yourself.