These days everyone is about their health. We want to eat better, get stronger, or get that beach body by the time summer hits. A lot of people make great strides at the start when they make that decision to make a turn around in their diet or exercise habits, but this gung-ho attitude quickly tapers for most of us. Why does this happen? Usually it’s because we de-prioritize exercising or don’t have the discipline to keep to a diet due to the lack of motivation, that “I want” “go getter” attitude disappears.
There are a few tactics that we can follow to keep us fueled to continue that drive towards staying healthy and fit:
1.) Set a Goal
As human beings, we want to succeed at whatever we do and hate the feeling of failing at something. If you set a goal for yourself like dropping 5 pounds within a month, being able to run a 5K, or getting that “V” shape, you will have a clear vision and end goal to determine your success.
After you create a goal, it’s still easy for this goal to get lost in the shuffle of life, so you want to make sure you have a reminder of this goal. Try writing this goal down on a post-it and put it on your daily to-do list, by your computer, or on your mirror. The main thing you want to make sure is that you are reminded of this goal that needs to be achieved and this will help you change how you plan your day to fit in workouts or keep you aware of what you eat in a day.
2.) Make It Fun
The last thing on our minds are things we don’t enjoy, so if you aren’t enjoying something you will avoid it. Make sure you make exercising fun! Exercising doesn’t have to consist of running on a treadmill for miles or doing the same weighting lifting routine of benching and squatting. Be creative and change it up. Try group fitness classes, workout with a friend and challenge each other during an exercise, play a sport, or vary the types of exercises you perform. The key point here is find something you enjoy so you don’t dread it every time you do it.
With dieting, I know this can be extremely difficult resisting what you love eat, but it doesn’t have to be torture. When people decide they are going to eat healthy, they usually go extreme and make a 180 degree turn only eating salads and quitting ‘tasty meals’ cold turkey.
What I have learned is if you do this, you won’t last long at all. You still can enjoy some of the usual foods you eat as long as you portion it out and tweak it slightly taking a smaller portion of it and adding some “green” to it. An app that I started using to help me keep track of my caloric intake is myfitnesspal. This is a great app that will help you keep you on track of how many calories you eat in a day (there will be a future post of fitness apps I have tested).
3.) Keep Yourself Accountable
Once you know what the finish line should look like and what steps to take to make it there, the last thing you want to do is assure that you can keep yourself accountable.
Finding a training partner that you exercise with doesn’t only just keep you company, but helps you stay on track and gives you that sense of responsibility to go to the gym with your partner. If you can’t find a training partner, schedule your workouts. If you set time aside to complete a task you won’t have an excuse to skip it or say that you don’t have enough time.
With dieting, as mentioned in the previous point, using the app myfitnesspal has really helped me stay on track with my calorie count per day. This app gives you the number of calories you are allowed to have according the goals you set and as you fill out your eating and exercise habits of the day, you get a visual of what your allotted calorie count is for the day (this is kind of like a bank account of calories you have to spend for the day)
So set a goal for yourself, have fun with it, and find someone or something that will keep you on par.
