How To Stay Committed To Fitness This Year

Whether it’s fitness or any other more difficult goal, you have to stay committed to achieve success. Consistency is vital and keeping the motivation high helps you maintain that consistency. Sticking with any program is easier at first no matter how committed you are. After a few days or weeks, that enthusiasm often dwindles and often disappears. Most fitness programs or New Year’s resolutions don’t just suddenly fail. They often die slowly. After the first week, you skip a session, then cut a session short and skip another. In the third week, you miss two workouts. Before you know it, the program is history. How do you maintain that commitment? It’s not easy. Use these techniques and tips to help you stick with your goals.

If you tried before and failed, try something different.

The very definition of insane is doing the same thing over again and expecting different results. Do something different if you’ve tried to stick with a workout program before and failed. If you set your workout for free time during your day, but one day you have no free time and skip it, that may be where your problem lies. Instead, put your workout on your schedule like any other appointment. Do something different than what failed you last time.

Set smaller goals to reach more quickly.

If you have a large goal, break it down into smaller ones. If the goal is to lose 60 pounds, switch the goal to losing two pounds every week for 30 weeks. At the end of each week give yourself something special like a massage or congratulate yourself in another way for achieving the goal. Celebrating small steps is motivating.

Make it fun and track your progress on a big chart.

Winners keep score. Include the number of reps and sets you did. Show how you track your progress, whether you use weight, measurements, blood pressure, or other guidelines. Take a picture of yourself in a revealing gym outfit. Every week or so, take another picture in the same outfit at the same place. It makes it fun to look back on those to see how much you changed. Change is slow. Looking at it periodically via pictures can be motivating.

• Start slowly and gradually build. Nothing can kill a program quicker than sore, stiff muscles. Start your workout slowly, working on form at first. Once your form is good, increase the reps and sets.
• Don’t do strength-building every day. It takes 48 to 72 hours for the micro tears to heal. If you do strength training one day, do stretches or recovery exercises the next day. It will help prevent injury.
• Get a workout buddy or use a personal trainer. Being held accountable can go a long way in keeping you committed. Both a workout buddy and a trainer do that. They also push you harder than you’d push yourself alone.
• Stay focused on your goal. Focus on how good you feel after a workout. It makes it easier to get started when you don’t want to do it.

For more information, contact us today at Get RIPPED! by Jari Love