Personal trainers, expensive health clubs, infomercial workout programs and diets: There are certainly lots of people promising you fitness success. If you are not as healthy or fit as you’d like to be, you’re probably at least tempted to give one or more of them a try.

But at the same time, there are lots of things that you can do on your own that won’t cost much money and will be setting you up for long term success by giving you a healthy and solid base fitness base that you can build on.

“I want to look good and have more energy.” Yes, that’s a simplistic sentence, but it pretty much sums up why people choose to exercise and diet. There is one word missing from that sentence: “I want to ALWAYS look good and have more energy.” Whatever magic fitness solution you choose, it has to be sustainable for the long term.

The reason that exercise DVDs sell so well is because people get tired of one program and go on to another one that promises ________ (faster results, less time commitment, more flexibility, etc). The key to long term success for most “normal” people with normal time constraints and normal boredom thresholds is to create a simple plan that they can stick to indefinitely.

Here are five simple things that you can do to vastly improve your fitness without having to wait for a DVD set or spend hundreds on a diet program or health club memberships.

1. Cut out processed food.

Prepared meals (frozen pizza, for example) and most snack foods are filled with additives, fats and sugars. These can wreck even the most well-planned diet. Rather than counting calories, you can simply start your “diet” by giving up eating anything that comes out of a box or anything that gets stored in the freezer and then microwaved. Processed, pre-prepared food has another drawback specifically for men. Many snack foods and frozen foods contain soy. Soy is usually seen as a low-fat diet food. However, it contains a high amount of a chemical compound that destroys testosterone, the main male hormone. This can lead to lower energy levels, which is the exact opposite of what you hope to achieve with your own fitness plan. Even packaged meals that are marketed as healthy alternatives to fattening TV dinners have soy. So it is best to avoid this type of food altogether and stick to fresh meats, vegetables, fruits and grains. I’ll tell you more about these fresh foods in #4.

2. Swim

Swimming is, in many ways, the perfect exercise. It helps you burn calories and fat because it is aerobic. It tones your muscles, and requires you to use multiple muscle groups at the same time. If you are trying to build a sustainable exercise plan, swimming has one major advantage that running or other sports don’t have: it is low impact. As long as you know how to swim, you can do so without much risk of injury. There are no stress fractures or foot or knee problems that are often associated with running. The same comparison could be made for tennis or basketball or any other “dry” sport. Municipal pools usually offer pay-in access for a few dollars a session, so you don’t even have to join a health club.

3. Drink enough water.

People usually remember to drink plenty of water when they exercise. However, when it comes to day to day life, most guys forget to stay hydrated. You’ve probably heard the percentages: more than 70% of your body is fluid. Hydration is necessary to maximize the calorie-burning benefits both from exercise and from daily activities. The general guideline: drink at least half of your ideal body weight in ounces of liquid per day. “Liquid” could be water, fruit juice or non-caffeinated teas.

4. Do lots of compound bodyweight exercises.

The best exercises for burning calories and increasing energy cannot be done in the weight room. Compound exercises are exercises like swimming that involve multiple muscle groups. There is one important benefit that I did not mention in the swimming section. Compound exercises help to maximize hormone production. In men, the main hormone is testosterone. Testosterone increases your energy level and helps build muscle mass. Basically, the more muscles you involve in each exercise, the more testosterone your body will produce. Hindu push-ups (pushups that swoop forward and back as well as going up and down) are a good example of a compound exercise that uses nothing but your own bodyweight. Exercise bands are a cheap tool for compound exercises. You can do body-weight compound exercises and band exercises on those days when you can’t get to the pool (or instead of going to the pool if you don’t like to swim).

5. Focus on food groups, not calories.

Some companies like Weight Watchers have made millions of dollars (probably actually more like billions) by getting people to count the calories that they eat every day. Yes, this can be successful. But is it sustainable? Are you really willing to count every single calorie (or “point” in WW-speak) that you eat every day? You can get surprisingly close to an ideal amount of calories and nutrients by trying a much older method: eating a certain amount of servings from each “food group.” If you are also swimming and doing compound bodyweight exercises, then the difference between a complex calorie-counting program and a more general food group approach will be negligible. You probably know the numbers already: 5-7 vegetables, 6-8 grains, 3-5 fruits, 2-3 meats or other proteins, and 2-3 dairy servings. Legumes and mushrooms can also be added into the equation too, depending on your tastes.

If you do these five things, you will not only lose weight and have a more toned body, but you will also feel more energetic, which is very important if you want to continue your fitness efforts indefinitely.