Are You Bankrupting Your Body? The Perils of the "Get-Fit-Quick" Scheme
It’s easy to get discouraged when you look at fitness. The whole system seems rigged, and it’s tempting to feel like your efforts are a waste of time. But what if we started looking at fitness differently? Not as a simple cause-and-effect equation, but as an investment strategy?
The fitness world is not "perfectly efficient." In economics, this means that information isn’t always available to everyone at the same time or without cost. Some people have an advantage. In fitness, this advantage comes in many forms—genetics, talent, and access to resources—and it can feel chaotic and unfair. But for those who are willing to pay attention, this chaos is recognizable. It’s a market, and you can learn how to get predictably good returns.
Over my 15 years as a trainer, I’ve seen countless people give up, not because of external pressures, but because they lost an internal battle. They got caught in a cycle of comparison, seeing other people's progress as a reflection of their own lack of it. In a system where rewards feel unfairly distributed, it's easy to feel like your effort isn’t worth it. Most people quit because they simply can't see the return on their investment.
If we view fitness as an investment strategy—and we should—we need to understand the market. Instead of money, we invest our time and effort. Our return is increased strength, better endurance, and even enhanced cognitive power. These aren't just physical benefits; they’re force multipliers that can be applied to any other area of our lives, from making more money to building better relationships. Becoming more fit means you can tolerate more stress, recover from setbacks faster, and there’s even evidence that your problem-solving skills and willpower increase exponentially.
A perfectly efficient system would give everyone the same exact return on their effort. We know that isn’t the case in fitness. That's why I want to use a framework from the late investor and strategist Charlie Munger. One of his guiding principles was The Inversion Theory, which he summed up as: “Just tell me where I will die, and I won’t go there.” By applying this to fitness, we can identify and avoid the three most common fallacies that hold people back. Munger and many others argued that the difference between the successful and unsuccessful isn't their bank account, but their thinking. I believe the same is true for fitness. We need fewer excuses and better models.
1. The Fallacy of Genetic Predisposition: Blaming Your Genes
The idea that you're either fit or unfit because of your genetics is a form of “unequal distribution of information.” Just as some financial investors have insider knowledge, some people are born with genetic advantages that significantly influence their fitness potential.
And while this is true and undeniably "unfair," it doesn’t change the fact that developing yourself physically is an intelligent investment. Yet, this is where many people get stuck. They see the "unfair advantage" others have and fail to invest their effort intelligently. They treat fitness like a slot machine and quit when someone else hits the jackpot before them. This feeling can lead to a delusion that fitness is a limited resource, and apathy feels like an appropriate protest.
Despite your genetics, you still benefit from training. Comparing your results to others makes it feel like a zero-sum game, but fitness is an infinite game. Your genes are "information" about your potential, and training is how you leverage that information. By understanding your genetic limitations, you can focus your efforts on what matters most to your goals. The challenge of overcoming "poor" genetics gives you not just more information, but better information—data specific to you. You gain what I call "insider training."
Ironically, the genetically gifted and those who inherit wealth alike can face greater setbacks. Their unearned information isn’t wisdom. Similarly, startups with too much capital early on often fail because they never have to learn how to solve problems without just throwing money at them. Resourcefulness is a key contributor to success, and it’s often diminished when you’re not forced to find another way. The genetically gifted get huge returns on their initial effort, which works great until a setback or a shift in their progress leaves them with no tools other than brute force.
Always remember that someone will always outperform you, and many will see progress in half the time. Your only model for comparison is yourself—where you started versus where you are now. There are infinite ways to win and only one way to lose: to quit.
2. The Fallacy of Unequal Returns: Blaming a Lack of Talent
It can be difficult to distinguish between talent and genetics, but you can think of talent as the "delta" between getting something wrong and getting it right. In other words, it’s the time it takes to learn and change your behavior.
Most people think of talent as "god-given," but it's really a learning curve amplified by interest or desperation, and flattened by indifference. Most of us lack talent because we lack interest. And we lack interest because we can’t correctly see the benefits or understand their importance. Think about the first time you touched a hot stove. The time it took you to assess the risk and change your behavior was likely instantaneous. We are all so very "talented" when it comes to not touching stoves because we remain interested in not getting burned.
This is why we see so much progress from people who have near-death or life-altering experiences. Nothing increases talent faster than a doctor telling you you’re at risk of heart disease, or the realization that you might not be around for your grandkids. Mortality forces attention and interest.
Then there are those who seem "untalented" despite their investment in fitness. I'd argue their lack of talent is because they've outsourced their lessons. They pay others to pay attention for them, whether it's hiring a coach without asking why they're doing what they’re doing, or mindlessly following a pro athlete’s workout plan. Most fitness programs are like low-interest mutual funds—they're better than nothing, but they're penny stocks compared to the power of a successful venture.
If you look at any "talented" athlete, you can generally see their interest and time investment if you go back far enough. Warren Buffett made his first stock trade at age 11 and his first business at 14. Are we really surprised he’s the world’s most successful investor? We aren't; we just describe his interest and focus as talent so we can excuse our own lack of it.
If you want a return from your fitness investment, get interested and stay interested.
3. The Fallacy of the Debt-Leveraged Market: The Perils of Shortcuts
In finance, debt is a tool used to leverage an investment, allowing you to access capital you don't yet have in the hope of generating a larger return. The risk is that if the investment sours, the debt and its compounding interest can lead to a catastrophic collapse. In the fitness market, shortcuts are a form of "debt." They promise to accelerate results by bypassing the time, effort, and consistency required to build a solid foundation. The "interest" on this debt comes in the form of injury, hormonal damage, burnout, and an unsustainable "house of cards" that is prone to collapse.
Think of someone who takes on massive, high-interest debt to buy a flashy car, creating the illusion of wealth without the assets to back it up. They look successful, but they are one missed payment away from bankruptcy. Similarly, an individual might use extreme 6-week challenges, unverified supplements, or performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) to achieve a muscular physique. They create the illusion of fitness, but without the underlying foundation of a sustainable lifestyle, they are one injury or hormonal crash away from a significant "physical bankruptcy."
This is one of the most powerful lessons to learn from economics: short-term desire can spoil long-term gain. There are times when leverage can work to your advantage, such as training to compete at a high level. But more often than not, it's not worth the risk. The most effective fitness "investors" recognize that the real wealth is not in the illusion of a quickly-gained physique, but in the enduring health, strength, and functionality built debt-free.
In a world full of unfairness, perhaps the most unfair part is how we treat ourselves. We get tricked into buying the "next best thing"—new supplements, fad diets, and gizmos—making it nearly impossible to recognize the true power of being fit. But by understanding these common traps, we can focus on the tried-and-true methods of developing ourselves physically.
I won’t lie, fitness is boring. It’s about habitual practice, conservative progress, and constantly questioning your limitations. But realizing what you can do with it is not. Fitness might be one of the greatest equalizers in an unfit world. I have seen people who felt stuck in life transform their circumstances simply by developing themselves physically. Much like a financial market, value is contagious. When you recognize that the changes you make in yourself will echo out into the changes you feel in your circumstances, you haven’t just become more fit—you’ve become free.
