Fitness – How to Get Results
You know, every time I follow a plan, ANY plan, for achieving fitness I get great results. Within weeks or even days I can feel the difference.
Any time I don’t follow a plan, I don’t see much improvement!
Funny that!
It’s so easy to have a vague idea about getting in shape, losing weight, running a 5K.
But it’s only systematic day after day effort which makes any difference.
Are you hoping for results and doing the odd fitness session?
Are you playing the odd game of tennis or baseball “when you get time”?
Or are you actually following a plan to achieve the results you want?
Fitness Goals: Targets or Standards?
Although you may have an overall goal to get fit, remember that fitness is not just a target but something you want to maintain in your life forever.
It’s not as if you want to run a marathon and then retire to couch-potato land forever (well at least I hope not) so fitness goals need to be looked at a little differently from those you might have for your career or finances.
Once you have reached a reasonable level of fitness with your initial goal “to get fit”, you may want to set a goal to reach a higher level or you may just want to set standards for yourself.
You don’t have to strive to get fitter and fitter unless you have really got the fitness bug. But if you don’t challenge yourself regularly, you will lose the level of fitness you have reached.
Standards could be things like
- I will work on strengthening my muscles for twenty minutes three times a week
- I will walk at least 30 minutes every day
- I will practice yoga 5 times a week
- I will eat 7 portions fruit and vegetables a day
- I will try a new activity every month
- I will find a dance class I like and attend twice a week
The difference is that standards type goals never end – though you should review them regularly to make sure they are taking you where you want to be.
Keeping up standards can be just as challenging as working on improving fitness and in some ways you need to be even more motivated to keep this up as you will not be seeing so many dramatic positive changes in how you look and feel.
Maintaining a log can help with motivation – you’ll be able to see in black and white how well you are sticking to your standards when you mark off what you do each day.
7 Ways to Get More Fun from Your Fitness Program
Have more fun working out so that you’ll be motivated to get out there and do it more regularly!
1. Choose a Sport or Activity you Love
Why go to the gym if you hate the gym? Choose an activity which appeals to you and give it a go. When you’re ice-dancing or rock climbing, skiing or playing tennis exercise just happens and doesn’t seem like a chore.
2. Make Exercise Part of Your Social Life
Find a workout partner you enjoy spending time with so that you look forward to getting together for a run or gym session. Just don’t get so carried away and chat so much that you forget to work out! If you usually get together with friends for a meal or drinks see if you can persuade them to do something active instead. Baseball anyone?
3. Enjoy Nature
Exercise is often the only time we adults get fresh air. Make the most of your work out time by taking yourself off to the great outdoors. Find a local beach, park, lake or hill where you can work out and enjoy the wonders of nature at the the same time.
4. Feel the Movement
While you exercise, focus on your body as it moves through the air – sometimes you can feel yourself almost gliding. Feel the pleasure of the movement itself – your muscles working in a co-ordinated way, the efficiency of your body’s cooling systems, how you heart and lungs work together to send oxygen to your muscles. Imagine you had been confined to a tiny cell for weeks on end or hospitalized in a full body cast and feel the joy of now being able to move your whole body.
5. Look the Part
Treat yourself to some new workout clothes you look forward to wearing. You’ll be more comfortable and enjoy working out more in gear that is made for your sport.
6. Entertainment
An ipod filled with your favorite music can make the difference between a boring workout and one you enjoy. Talking books are another alternative. If you exercise at home or at the gym choose a time when you can watch a show you love on TV whilre you work out. You’ll never notice the time.
7. Set Yourself a Challenge
Don’t see exercise as a chore but as a challenge. Always log your workouts and set goals for yourself every week, every workout. Don’t push yourself so far that you risk injury but make sure that you are always progressing and moving one step ahead.
Fitness Motivation: Do You Have a Goal “To Get Fit”?
Fitness Goals image by Dale Gillard
Having a goal to get fit is all well and good and many of us decide that we’d like to do that.
This seems to be the case particularly around January 1st when we are replete with festive food and fat and also as summer approaches when we realize the layers of winter clothing will no longer be hiding the evidence of our neglect.
But what does getting fit mean exactly?
What are you aiming for when you say you want to get fit?
- Do you mean you want to be able to run for the bus without going red in the face or to be so fit you can run a marathon in under four hours?
- Are you looking for cardio fitness or muscle definition? flexibility or bulk?
- Do you really just want to lose weight and get in shape and think getting fit will help?
You see there are as many types of fitness as there are types of people and your goals should match what you are trying to achieve.
For this you need to know why you want to get fit
It helps your motivation to have a precise vision in mind of what you are aiming for when you think about being fit.
What exactly will be different when you achieve your goal ?
- What does getting fit look like?
- What does getting fit feel like?
- What will you be doing differently when you are fit?
Only once you know why you want to get fit and what exactly you are aiming for can you start to work out the steps you can take to actually achieve your goal to get fit.
Motivation for Running When You Don’t Want To!
If you’re a regular reader here, you’ll know that I run but I’m not always so keen on doing it.
When I’m outside and actually running I don’t mind it too much – and sometimes I even think I’m enjoying it for a brief moment – you know, the fresh air, the feeling of being alive, the great views around my usual running routes in Edinburgh.
But sometimes getting out there is a bit of a mental struggle.
When that’s a problem I often use a trick I got from Time Management and motivation expert Mark Forster. He got himself to exercise every day by having a goal of simply getting out of his front door with his exercise gear on.
That’s all he had to do.
If he got out there and didn’t want to do any more he’d still met his exercise goal for the day.
Of course once he’d taken the trouble to get ready and get out there, he found himself actually running.
But it helped him get over the mental block of having to force himself to exercise. It suddenly became a choice.
If you’re having problems getting yourself to exercise regularly – give this a try and see if it helps.
Fitness Motivation: Leave Room For More
Fitness Motivation image by ggvic
Although motivation is at its highest when you introduce a new fitness program, you need to fight the urge to get over-enthusiastic when you begin a new workout routine or sport.
I know that sounds a bit counterproductive but there is method in my madness.
If you go all out to reach your limits and do too much too soon:-
- you will feel the negative effects first – over-tired aching muscles and potentially injury
- you are going to find long and frequent workouts and training sessions more difficult to slot into your life when you weren’t doing so much before
- you are more likely to drop out within the first few weeks as it all becomes too much for you
Give yourself a chance to get used to your new fitness regime and make your new exercise a habit before you push yourself too far. Feel the benefits and then expand your reach and you are more likely to make it a long-term activity.
So do the beginners program even if you think you are moderately fit. Do two sessions a week rather than three. And let yourself want to do more rather than less.
No Time to Get Fit?
I read in the local newspaper yesterday that the US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice gets up at 4am to go to the gym.
No wonder she looks so good at 53.
It’s not that she is any different to anyone else. As she says
“Like everybody, I get up some mornings and think “I can’t do it” and then I think “Sure you can, because you won’t feel alert if you don’t”"
Although you might think being featured regularly in the media might give you the motivation to stay in shape, (and I’m sure that would work well for me – vanity prevails) the same can’t be said of some stars who get in and out of shape with alarming regularity. Don’t they care when a million people see their flab over breakfast? I sure would.
If you know getting up at 4am is not an option, yet you’re so busy it’s the only time you can see free in your schedule, why not take a look at my Fitness in No time program because 10 minutes, three times a week and a simple home routine is all you really need to get in shape.
Maybe Condoleezza should try it for those days when matters of State get in the way?
Fitness Motivation: Everything Changes
If there’s one thing you need to remember where fitness is concerned…
Nothing Stays the Same
If you are fit today, it means zilch if you do nothing but lie in bed for 4 weeks – you’ll be as unfit as a lifelong couch potato.
And if you are unfit today, you can make great strides in the same 4 weeks and change your fitness level beyond recognition.
The only thing is, if you don’t start a fitness routine you’ll never get there. And if you don’t keep up a fitness routine, you’ll never stay at the level of fitness you achieve.
And just to make things more complex, you can’t even stay the same by sticking to one workout routine every day or every week – you have to challenge yourself in new ways and push yourself to stay at your peak.
So what this boils down to is that
- you had better find a range of activities you enjoy doing – that make working out fun
- view any routine you start as getting fit for life, not just for the summer
- find activities you can do all year round or at least activities which you can do to cover all parts of the year
- if you don’t like working out, just the feeling it gives you, get hooked on that feeling so that you feel motivated to keep up whatever you start
Easy Fitness Motivation Tip
I have found this fitness motivation tip to be easy but also very effective for my clients (and it works for me every time too!)
If you’re trying to start a daily fitness habit then the best thing you can do if buy a large paper calendar and a big thick black marker pen and pin it up on your wall where you will be able to see it often.
Then every day you do your workout (or other good habit – whatever you’re trying to achieve) take your marker pen and put a big cross through the day.
After a row of crosses you are not going to want to leave a gap.
Aim for 30 crosses in a row – miss one and you have to start right back at the beginning.
If at all possible put your calendar up where co-workers or family will see it. They’ll ask about it and that will help spur you on too!
Make Fitness a Lifetime Goal
Photo by Thowra_uk
A lot of people start all guns blazing on a fitness program, put in a lot of hard work, get pretty fit and then give up until the next time they get the desire to do something about their condition.
I have done something similar myself with running (though I usually do at least something to keep fit all year round).
It’s such a waste of effort to let fitness go once you have achieved it.
I’ve just been thinking why so many of us do this and the answer keeps coming back to me that we try and get fit with activities we just don’t like enough.
And I’ve also come to the conclusion that there’s no point even starting something if we KNOW we’re not going to keep it up for more than a brief period.
Now, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try new stuff – after all you don’t know whether you’ll absolutely fall in love with circuit training or yoga or horse riding until you’ve got over the initial few weeks training – the awkward stage.
I just mean that if you know yourself well enough to be pretty certain you’ll never visit the gym regularly for the rest of your life BEFORE you sign up for membership, you are just kidding yourself when you hand over your hard earned-cash.
You see paying for something never made you fit – only doing it on a regular basis does that.
Try activities that you will look forward to doing, that you’d like to learn, that you think you could enjoy forever given half a chance.
Try loads of different things until you find something you will stick at – simply for the pure pleasure of doing it.
Even if you’re not that enthusiastic about an activity to begin with, give everything a fair chance and you’re more likely to uncover the pursuits that will keep you fit and having fun for the rest of your life.
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