Starting something is easy.
This is ever more evident in the fitness industry. Millions of people start the gym on January 1st.
How many are still there by February 1st?
Not very many.
People soon realize that a year’s worth of treating your body like a garbage disposal cannot be undone in four weeks, no matter what the social media zealots tell you.
No cleanses, no magic exercises, no magic pill or diet will undo all that unhealthy living.
But such is life. And if you survive long enough, you realize that anything worth doing takes time.
This may sound like you or a friend you know. Included in this article are going to be some mistakes that people commonly make and exactly how to fix them.
Because the best part of making mistakes is that you get to recognize them and not make them again. After all, learning from your mistakes is the best way to get any forward progress.
Too much change at once
When you first start on your health journey, you are excited and you want to get the boat in the water.
You hit the gym 6 days per week.
You throw away your junk food and buy all the fruits and vegetables from the grocery store.
You vow to drink less alcohol and soda, however, the more changes you try to institute at once, you realize that those changes do not stick very well. There is a very important lesson in this.
At the gym, we live by the 10% rule. That rule is very simple: we do one small incremental change per week or per month. After a short amount of time, those 10% changes will add up to an entire lifestyle that is sustainable.
What do I do instead?
The old adage states, “How do you eat an elephant?” One bite at a time!
- Start small-You cannot undo decades of living a certain way in a short amount of time no matter how hard you try. The success rate is very low and it is not sustainable. What you need to do is pick one small, actionable item that you can execute every day and then do that every day until it becomes a habit. Then, simply move on to another actionable item.
- Fall in love with the process– Don’t worry if you’re not perfect at the beginning, that’s the whole point. It takes a little while to make habits stick. Remember, the only way to figure things out is to fail and then never repeat those failures again!
Master Delayed Gratification
As I stated in the aforementioned, from a psychological standpoint, you are making a lot of changes all at once and you expect instant success. The number on the scale should be plummeting, fat should be falling off your body, and now the mirror is your best friend.
Hold.
It usually takes weeks to see any visible changes in your body, and during this time, your nervous system is playing catch up. Your ligaments and tendons are getting used to the exercises that you’re putting them through, and you’re slowly becoming a physiologically trained individual.
Your body is busy recovering from the stress and needs time to deal with it.
Be patient. If getting in shape only took six weeks, we would not have an obesity pandemic in the United States.
What to do instead?
Remember that it took decades of you doing unhealthy habits every single day to get to where you are, and it’s going to take a little while to undo those things and turn that ship around.
Celebrate the small wins along the way (even if it’s an extra rep in the gym or an extra 5 minutes of walking). Give yourself a pat on the back!
Ask for help
In the beginning, everything is bright and shiny, and your motivation and discipline are at an all-time high. You’re hitting the gym multiple times a week, you’re eating better, and your body is a reflection of that.
Everything always goes to plan until life happens.
It could be many of these things:
- You hit a strength plateau
- An unexpected increase of work hours
- You get hurt
- Just life in general and all of its infinity awesomeness
You have two options at this point. You can either knuckle down and power through, or you start losing those good habits that you’ve built up. Either way, reaching your goals is going to be more difficult.
What to do instead
I am a coach, but I am also a client to a handful of other people. I am all about making things easier on myself and my clients. This is why I do not do my own programming as I have hired someone to do that for me. I firmly believe that trainers need training. And for me, if I do not write the program, I have to do everything that is put on the program, as silly as that sounds.
Just make it easy for yourself by asking for help if you need it.
This can take on many forms, from: Asking a trainer at your local facility for tips on certain exercises, how to work around an existing injury, or what a good general workout routine looks like.
Starting something is easy, but maintaining the discipline to keep up those healthy habits becomes more difficult with time, especially when things are not going your way.
If you need help with your exercise routine or getting started, make sure you reach out to us using this link:
