My own research on the subject, and my several years of experience applying said research, taught me this: fitness as an overall goal is actually very, very simple. It gets complicated only when you try to optimize and fine-tune your workouts and diets, which most people do not actually need to do unless they are professional bodybuilders or powerlifters. Regardless of your goals, it comes down to three things: eat well, sleep as much as your body actually needs, and lift weights.

The problem is that the fitness industry, in order to justify its own existence, feeds people so many little details and tricks and drivel that it intimidates those who want to start, and quickly overwhelms those who actually do start. Furthermore, when someone fails to see results, they attribute it to some little detail that they must have missed, which perpetuates the existence of all those fitness magazines and websites.

Combine this with people's natural tendency to look for quick fixes, and you got yourself a huge mess. What I tell people who want to become fit is this: your current body is the result of years and years of certain habits you followed. You can't undo that in a month.

For those who are reading this and want to become healthier, my advice is as follows.

1. If you want to lose weight, then you need to eat below maintenance, do a mix of cardio and weightlifting, and sleep eight hours a day.

2. If you want to build muscle, then you need to eat a LOT of food with tons of protein, do mostly weightlifting, and sleep eight hours a day.

3. If you want to get "toned", that actually equates to losing body fat to make underlying muscles more visible, so follow 1.

4. If you want to build cardiovascular endurance (e.g. for sports), then focus mainly on cardio, with some weightlifting to build the muscles used in those sports.

From there, it's a matter of figuring out the basics and sticking with them.