Not Too Late For New Year's Resolutions...
Many of us started New Year resolutions to get healthier, start exercising or join a gym with the intentions of starting a fitness and/or weight loss program. We are now into the second quarter of the New Year. This article is for those of you that have either put off their resolution started to kick their old habits but didn’t finish or that have lost the motivation to continue. Here are a few ideas for you to consider so you can get started (better now than never) or to pick up where you left off.
The best day of the week to start a new program is on Saturday. If you try to start on a Monday (which so many of us often do), we’re setting ourselves up for failure. We have good intentions, but work, family and our regular work week schedule tend to interfere with us starting something new and before you know it we find ourselves saying “Next week…next month…next year…” Don’t let that happen to you. Start your new program on Saturday so that by the time Monday rolls around you’ve already got two days under your belt and are ready to rock and roll into the new week and program.
Plan ahead. Decide whether your going to join a gym and hire a personal trainer, follow an at home program or use one of the many online systems. Set realistic goals, have an agenda to follow that includes exercise and nutrition plans designed to meet your goals and have a tracking system with milestones (mini accomplishments) for you to celebrate along the way to meeting your ultimate goals. Celebrating your mini accomplishments along the way is a great way to keep yourself motivated, inspired and engaged in the plan.
With health care and insurance costs on the increase, we all want to spend less time at the doctors. However, when starting a fitness or weight loss program, consult with your doctor first even if you’ve met with a personal trainer, nutritionist or fitness consultant. Keeping your primary care physician involved will help avoid any serious complications or reactions and will ensure you’re making the right choices and increase the success rate of your new healthy lifestyle.
We’ve met with our doctor, we have goals and an agenda to follow and we’ve planned to start on Saturday, but wait, there is one last thing we must do before we begin. Starting a fitness or weight loss program and sticking to it means your mind has to be 100% committed to your success. We must make a commitment to ourselves to stick to the plan and be patient. We didn’t put on the extra weight or get in the habit of eating unhealthy overnight. The weight isn’t going to come off and we’re not going to see the results of healthy eating overnight either. Statistically it takes an average of four weeks for an individual to begin to feel and see the effects of changing their exercise or eating habits. Not to say that you won’t immediately benefit from the changes, but for the effects to be significantly noticeable (which is what we tend to desire), count on about four weeks.
Now it’s up to you, don’t put it off another day, make a commitment to yourself to get started or finish what you started and meet your New Year resolution. It’s not too late, the year’s not over yet! Stop making excuses and make a list of reasons why you should make this the year you start living a healthy and fit lifestyle! Cheers!!!
Dawn Fernandez – IFBB Figure Pro
THE MODERATE LIFESTYLE
https://www.facebook.com/dawnfernandezpro
“Make changes for a life time, not just a life event.”
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