Have you ever read a magazine to have fitness success or see people in the gym who are in perfect shape and you keep thinking, “why haven’t I gotten to that point yet?” You keep doing the same thing day after day but don’t seem to see any changes or results. This lack of results usually leads to an attitude of frustration and ultimately a lackluster effort to reach your fitness goals or even stay motivated to exercise.
Well, chances are, you are missing one or several key ingredients to achieve and maintain fitness success. The following tips that I’ve gathered below are the essentials that I think everyone needs to reach their fitness goals and stay motivated and dedicated to making the positive changes they need in their lives.
After practicing and talking to many of my clients over the last few years, I’ve found that these 10 tips are a must-have in anyone’s fitness program!
Have Well-Defined Fitness Success Goals
This may seem like a must-have, but I’m sure you can go to any gym and ask someone who works out, “what’s your goal?” and they will stumble over their words. It’s awesome but true – I see it every day at work. If you don’t have a goal – a well-defined goal – then how do you expect to get to where you want to be if you don’t know where to start? Your goal is your finish line; so you need this to be well defined and as specific as possible to start your path to achieving it.
Some of the common goals I hear when I first start coaching clients are: 1. Refresh, 2. Eat better, 3. Lose weight. It was quite vague and had no definite, measurable purpose.
Be as specific as you can about your goals! After all, this is your goal! What specific areas would you like to improve? What would you do specifically to celebrate? When do you want to be pampered? What would you change with your current diet to achieve your goal of “eating better”? How much weight do you want to lose specifically? When do you want to lose this weight?
If you answered any of the questions mentioned above, the original goal of toning, eating better, and losing weight now looks more like this: 1. Have smaller, firmer thighs and buttocks to fit 2 smaller pants sizes , 2. Eat 5 -6 small meals a day and reduce more processed foods, 3. Lose 10 pounds of fat in 4 months.
These goals are much more specific and definite, and give you a better idea of what you’re working on, so you can make the necessary changes to your strength, cardio, and nutrition program to reach those goals once and for all!
Be patient
Fitness is not a quick fix it was never and never will be it is a life change that you are committed to incorporating into your life every day to live a better, longer, healthier life. With that said, don’t expect to find a successful fitness plan that works overnight. You don’t need 48 hours to gain weight or develop an unhealthy diet, so don’t expect immediate results.
One of the tips I give my clients is to set short term goals (daily, weekly and monthly) as well as long term goals (3+ months) so you can learn to develop patience with your fitness program
. Sometimes looking at long-term goals first can be overwhelming, but if you set smaller goals and can check them off your to-do list each day, it’s worth developing patience with your overall fitness program. It also helps develop a positive attitude which is also a must have for fitness success!
Maintain a Positive Attitude
Is your glass half empty or half full? Your mind is a powerful tool and stops before your body wants to. Train your brain to be positive and the results you see physically will be astonishing.
One trick I give my clients is to look for positive quotes that make you feel good, keep you focused on your goals, and give you the inner strength to reign through your practice even on days you may not like. go to the gym for that training session. Once you’ve chosen a quote, paste it anywhere you can think of so it’ll always be a reminder to you to keep a positive attitude.
One quote I usually use is, “Somewhere in the world someone is training and you’re not. When you race him, he wins.” I’ve put it on the steering wheel of my car, on the nightstand in my bedroom, and even attached it to my bathroom mirror. It’s a constant reminder that my training is important, and I can do it. Train your brain with a positive attitude!
Create a Food Journal
Nutrition seems to be the downfall for most people when it comes to fitness success, and that’s because there are so many temptations out there every minute of every day. And do you really know how much you’re consuming? If you don’t write it down, then the answer is no.
To be successful with the nutritional aspects of your fitness program, you must take responsibility for what you eat. Most people tend to snack more than they realize, or drink more calories than they expect. By keeping a food journal, and writing down what goes into your mouth every time you eat or drink, you become more aware of how much you actually consume in a day, week, etc. nutrients that need to work.
Now, your food journal doesn’t need to be too detailed or cost more than $10… it can be as simple as a spiral bound notebook in which you write down what you eat and drink each day, and track the calories
. At the end of the week, look at what you have written and see where you need to make the necessary changes. As you become more accustomed to tracking your food intake, you will notice the changes in your body that you have been wanting to achieve for a long time.
Save Training Logs/Structured Workout Plans
Just as you would track your food intake, it makes sense to track your exercise. How do you expect to get better and better during your training program if you don’t know where to start?
Your body is highly intelligent and responds well to diet and exercise – for a period of time. But if you keep doing the same exercise routine over and over again, with little or no change in weight, reps, and exercise, then your body will get bored and say, “sorry, I’m not showing you any more changes.”
To avoid this monotony in your routine, simply record what you routinely do in a spiral notebook as you would your food journal. Now you have the ability to look back on what routine you did on what day, and can avoid repeating the exercise over and over again.
Track Your Heart Rate with a Monitor
Every person’s body works differently, so you can’t necessarily take a cardio program that worked for someone else for fat loss and expect to get the exact same results. This is where heart rate training and knowing and understanding your own metabolic zones comes into play.
Basically, every person burns body fat more efficiently in certain heart rate zones, so it’s important to know what zones work best for your own body and make sure that you are performing your cardio workouts in those zones to see the results you’re working so hard towards achieving.
One of the best ways to continue to see fat loss is to continue to improve your VO 2. What’s your VO 2? It’s how well your body responds to aerobic (requires oxygen) exercise. You need oxygen to burn body fat, and having a higher VO 2 means your body can uptake more oxygen during a workout…i.e.
you can sustain longer periods of cardiovascular workouts thus increasing your body’s ability to burn fat. Pair this with a metabolic test that accurately measures your optimal heart rate training zones for fat loss, and you’re well on your way to blasting off that stubborn fat!
Maintain Variety in Your Practice
Ever heard the quote, “the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results”? Well, you should think about your practice with this statement in mind. Not only will you be bored and demotivated if you have to repeat the same routine over and over again, but so will your body.
Once your muscles notice that you’re repeating the same movement over and over again, the results you’ll ever get from the exercise will start to diminish as your muscles hit a little thing called muscle memory.
So activate! You can still follow the same structure (i.e. total body weight training on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, cardio on Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, rest on Sunday) but change the workouts in your total body circuit and the intensity and duration of your cardio sessions. . You need structure to be successful, but you don’t need to be monotonous in your practice!
Get Enough Sleep
This one is a yield killer! The recommended amount of sleep per night for an average adult is 8 hours….do you sleep 8 hours consistently each night? Otherwise, you may be sabotaging your hard work in the gym and in the field of nutrition.
A study conducted by Stanford University and the University of Wisconsin revealed that subjects who slept less than 8 hours per night had higher levels of body fat and also reported higher levels of ghrelin (a hormone that stimulates hunger) and higher levels of leptin (a protein that stimulates hunger). lower). hormones that trigger satiety and can also regulate appetite).
How does this hormone affect your weight? Lack of sleep causes you to feel less satisfied after eating and also increases your appetite. So, if you’re active, make sure to take a few extra hours of sleep so you can avoid this hidden result killer!
Drink Enough Water
We are all probably used to hearing that the average person needs to drink at least eight glasses of water a day, the equivalent of about 64 ounces of water. Now reports are emerging that the average adult should consume about 96 ounces of water daily, and even more if the individual wants to lose fat or exercise regularly.
DO NOT skip this – especially if you want to perform at your peak physique and get your results! Remember that water makes up about 60% of your body weight, so you need it! Water not only quenches your thirst, but it also regulates your body temperature, lowers your appetite, helps your liver function properly, helps improve your metabolic function, and even helps the functioning of the endocrine glands, just to name a few. So drink and drink often!
Hire Professionals
When you are sick, do you ask for your own prescription? Or how about when you have a toothache, do you pull your own tooth? No, you go see a PROFESSIONAL who specializes in this area of your body. Well, guess what… personal trainers are professionals in the right exercises and training for your body, so why would you try to do it yourself?
Sure, you can look up the basics of strength training and maybe pull some cardio routines out of a book, but if you really want to get the absolute best results for your own body, then go see someone who specializes in proper program design. for many different body types (i.e. personal trainers!)
Until you understand your body and how it reacts to certain exercises, nutrition, supplements, etc. You will stay at a certain “maintenance level” in terms of your results. If you really want to improve it, then invest the time and money (it’s well worth it!) seeking professional help from someone who spends most of their day studying and researching the human body and how it responds to exercise, nutrition, and supplements. I promise you won’t regret it.
So there you have it, my 10 personal tips for your fitness success. I encourage you to read this article, then read it again and really let these tips sink into your mind. You can even print this article and post it in several visible places throughout your home and workspace so you can constantly remind yourself what changes you need to make to really take control of your fitness destiny.