Why Willpower Was Never the Problem

You’re not failing because you’re lazy. You’re failing because the plan was never built for your life.

This isn’t another pep talk. It’s a reset.

In this episode, Coach Spencer calls out the real reason senior-level men keep falling off and what it actually takes to build a body that reflects success without burning your life to the ground.

We cover:

• Why “grind harder” keeps backfiring
• The five shifts high-performing men make to stop starting over
• What it means to finally stop winging it and lead your body the way you lead your career

If you’ve been white-knuckling your way through another “perfect week,” this one’s gonna hit.

DM “DESIGN” on Instagram @spencerhgallo and let’s build something real.

If this episode hit home, make sure you’re subscribed. This is Fitness by Design, the podcast for high-performing men ready to stop winging it and start leading with their body.

For more stories, strategies, and hard truths:

Follow me on Instagram – @spencerhgallo
Connect with me on LinkedIn – Spencer Gallo
Or shoot me a text, I read every single one.

Let’s keep building your edge, one episode at a time.

Transcript

0:37

You don't have a discipline problem. You have a design problem because if you're a senior level man, you're running your business, you're leading a team, you're carrying the weight of your family, then you have probably told yourself more than once. I just need to lock in again. But here's the truth, you're not broken. You're not lazy, and you're definitely not out of control, but you're just trying to force your life into systems that were never built for it. So welcome back to Fitness by Design. I am Coach Spencer, and this is gonna be one of the most important episodes that I have recorded for you so far, because this one, it's not just tactical. This one's personal. So you've done this before. You hit a point where you're frustrated with how you feel, you notice your shirts are tighter. The mirror starts to feel like a bad reminder instead of your actual reflection. So you tell yourself, that's it. I'm done messing around. And after the first week or two, you're dialed in, you're meal prepping, you're waking up early, you're skipping those beers at dinners and happy hours. Maybe you're even doing extra cardio. But then. Work gets busy. You miss one workout, then two, then you have to travel and you're on the road for a night or two. Something throws you off. You're starving because you've skipped breakfast for three weeks. Your kid wakes up in the middle of the night. You've got an 8:00 AM meeting and a two hour commute to get there, and that replaces the time that you were gonna try and hit the gym. And the next thing you know, it's Friday again, you're grabbing fast food on the way home and you're telling yourself you're gonna start again on Monday. How much of this sounds fricking familiar because I know that this sounds like pretty much years of my life. Well, here's the part that no one actually talks about, and it's not that you lack discipline, it's that your life is literally operating at such a high level of demand that any plan that you follow. Absolutely requires perfect consistency, or it's guaranteed to fail. You're not a beginner, but you're also not 25 years old anymore. You're not a college kid who can just live off of chicken and rice and pre-workout with no responsibilities and see results. You're a high performing man. You have a real life. You have real stakes in that life, and you have real people depending on you. So if the system that you're following for your health and fitness doesn't reflect that high performance that you already have in your life. Of course you're falling off of it. This is where most guys get trapped. They just keep trying to push through, saying that they're not disciplined enough. They need to work harder. They assume the problem is them, not the strategy they're taking. They double down. They take the harder diet approach. They do earlier workouts. They eat fewer carbs, they're doing more restrictions. Fuck, maybe you've even tried 75 Hardb because you're like, this is it. This is what I gotta do, and then it all collapses. And it's because you are already stretched so thin, your recovery is non-existent, your sleep is inconsistent, and your energy is being pulled in 17 different directions every single day. But the plan that you're trying to follow, it's so rigid, it's unforgiving, it's inflexible, and every single time that you fall off your coach or some asshole on the internet says, you're just not trying hard enough or you don't want it bad enough. Fuck that man. This is not a lack of effort that's hurting you. It is the refusal to accept that the system that you were following was never actually designed to survive the reality that you and I live in with two hour commutes, nine to five plus jobs, and having to still balance everything else around it. Trying harder isn't leadership. It's just denial. So you're probably saying like, yeah, cool, Spence. Great. What actually works, man? Well, what does it look like to build a body that reflects your leadership without having to give up the life that you've built? Well, let's start to walk through it. Number one, you have to anchor your nutrition with repetition, not perfection. You don't need to track every single bite of food to make progress. You don't need to live in MyFitness pale. You just need to be reliable and repeatable. So pick two or three meals that you genuinely like that align with your goals. And eat them on repeat. Eat'em on your busiest days. Eat'em on your busiest hours. Make them quick. Make them easy to prep and not worry about it. Maybe that's eggs with toast and fruit in the morning. Maybe it's making a protein shake and drinking that while you're driving to the office. Maybe it's steak, potatoes, and salads. At dinners, the goal is to stop decision making around your food because when you remove the friction of decisions, you can create consistency without having to try that hard. And then secondly is man, start lifting like a grown ass adult. Three to four times a week. You get in, you get focused. You hit the movements that build strength and lean muscle mass. You're not chasing soreness, you're not chasing sweaty shirts, you're not trying to burn calories. You need to build a stronger, more capable body for yourself and for your family. You need to train your back, your legs, your core, your arms, you push, you pull, you carry, You move like a man who wants to keep playing with his kids when they're 10, 12 years old, trying to beat your ass in the basketball court, not just keeping up with'em today while they're maybe just crawling around on the carpet. Number three is you need to walk every day. Man. Walking is not just good for fat loss. It's good for everything. It's good for your mind, it's good for your heart. It's good for fat loss. It's good for every. Thing. It is gonna help regulate your appetite. It's gonna help clear away stress. It's gonna keep your joints moving and your blood flowing. If you can walk for just 20 minutes a day, lift three times a week. You are already ahead of 90% of the guys your age. And then number four, use your calendar like a secret weapon because you live by your calendar in the office, but why aren't you scheduling your health into that as well? So block time for the times that you're gonna hit the gym block. Time to meal prep. Or even sometimes maybe eat that meal block. Time to go for a walk, ideally. Dude, just take your wife, take your kid, push'em around the neighborhood. Who cares? Make it a family event because if you don't protect your time, someone or something else is going to claim it. And most of the time it's Netflix and scrolling on fucking Instagram. And then lastly is just say it out loud. This is the one part that nobody wants to do. Tell somebody that you want to make a change and declare it, because when you raise the standard publicly, you raise the stakes for yourself internally, whether that's a coach like me, whether that's a friend, whether that's your spouse. You just need somebody who knows what you said you were going to do because that is gonna help you create integrity. Because when the system is built for real life, your results stop disappearing In 3, 4, 5 months, you stop starting over. Every Monday, you stop hiding behind quarter zips in the back of conference rooms, and you stop sucking in your gut every single time you're on a video call, praying that no one notices that you've gained weight during your hybrid work, but instead, you start walking into meetings with that quiet confidence. You start playing with your kids without getting winded or feeling like the fucking Rice Krispies box getting off the floor, and you start wearing the clothes that you actually like, not just the ones that still fit you. More than that though, man, you start to rebuild trust with yourself. Because for the first time in a long time, your actions finally start to align with who you believe you actually are. And that changes. Everything. So if today's episode hit home and you're done trying to force your life into somebody else's plan, Dm me the word design on Instagram, and let's just build something that fits into your world instead. This is fitness by design. And remember, the problem isn't your willpower. It's that you have been trying to wing it and calling it a plan. And with that, I will see you in the next episode.