So you made a decision to get in shape, lose weight, tone-up, get stronger, and or be more flexible. This is great, but what happens as time goes by, and why do people lose their way? Well, I believe that people just take their eyes off the prize. They see other things that get them excited, and they turn away. After a few weeks or a couple months, people lose the original enthusiasm they had when they created their goal. People are always looking to stay excited.
Making small changes can have a big impact. Do not try to make tons of changes at once. Time is horizontal, not vertical. If you cannot get it in that day, don’t worry, you have the next day to make a change. Making small changes also helps stay motivated and excited. If you make one small change at a time, you’ll have time to see it work and you will feel fantastic. But if you do everything at once, and say you do succeed, then you will only be able to enjoy everything only once. Its best to spread this enjoyment out.
Creating a healthier lifestyle for yourself does not have to be hard. Start off with activities like hiking. Elite Fitness Downtown has a hike club that meets every other Sunday (email us if you are interested in going with us). Then progress to jogging, then to running. Also, you can start eating healthy in stages. Start with getting rid of certain unhealthy things like soda, and chips, and then adding more vegetables. Or, you can start by adding vegetables to your current diet and then slowly get rid of certain foods and drinks. Your body will love you for this.
Here are a few tips to help keep you focused on your fitness goals:
Get Your Body in Alignment:
Whether you are currently in pain, or you become extremely sore because you just started working out- don’t panic, here is what you do. For those currently in pain, see a physical therapist (not a chiropractor), and learn how to get out of pain. Or you can see a personal trainer that has a certificate in corrective exercise or a certificate as a pain-free movement specialist. Just like a race car needs to be in alignment before it starts a race, your body needs to be in alignment before you start exercising.
If you are extremely sore because you just started to workout, and you blasted you muscles for 2 hours, then take a quick step back. Recover and start back again slowly. Start with just 30 minutes of exercise, then 45, then 60. There is no need for doing more than that, unless you exercise for 60 minutes and then stretch and foam roll after for 10-60 minutes. Guys will usually go in and blast their chest, and then be so sore they cant lift their arms over their shoulders, and ladies with do too much legs where they cant walk right the next couple days. Start Off Slow!! Regardless of your gender, start off slow, and incorporate stretching and foam rolling.
Create A Vision Board:
Either on a white board that you have hanging on your wall, or in a word document you have stored on your desktop. The trick is to have it where you look the most. Write out your goals in stages. One for a month from your start date, then one in 3 month, 6 months, and finally a year. Once you reach a year, you will see really great results, and you will have already established a habit.
Write down your goals on sticky notes and post them around your house and work. This will help you visualize it and stay focused on you goals. Visualize your goals, workouts, meals, rehab sessions. If you visualize it then you can accomplish it. I visualize my workout before they happen- from driving to the gym, to the smell of the gym, to the sounds of the weights, to the individual reps and sets, and to the delicious protein shake I have waiting for me in the car.
Keep A Food Journal:
This is easy once you get going with it. I know, just thinking about it sounds tedious. It feels like homework, right? But it is actually fun and exciting. You are documenting your eating habits, and after a while, you can go back and look how much your eating has changed. This is such a great motivator for sticking to your fitness goals.
You can use an app like MyFitnessPal. There is a free version and a paid version. Pick whichever one you prefer. This app will help get you started. You log in your food and the app will calculate your nutritional facts. It will tell you how many calories, protein, carbs, and fats you had. This will help you if you are tracking, and you should be, especially in the beginning. You do not need to do this forever, just in the beginning. After doing this for a while, you will start to see and understand what is in the food you are eating, and at the same time, you will start to feel how that foods affects you. When you line these two things up, you will be on another level, and you might not have to journal anymore unless you want to.
Workout with others:
Tell your friends and family that you are serious about working out and getting results this time around. Find the ones that are your helpers, because they are the ones that will help keep you on track, and they will let you know when you are changing. They usually see it before you do.
When you form a workout group, you get a community of likeminded people and you can keep each other motivated. It becomes like a social club where people cant wait to see each other. They look forward to getting away from their routine and having fun with their friends and family.
Hiring a trainer is the best option. The reason is because you are hiring someone that has put in the time and work into learning proper form, and know they how to progress you in and out of the various phases of training. Here at Elite, we do semi-private personal training, and our clients have fun training with like minded people. They get to have fun and the trainer focuses on coaching them. Just make sure you pick the right trainer, because not all trainers come with the same amount of knowledge. They might look the same, but not all trainers keep up their education.
