It happens to even the best of us who dedicate our lives to improving others health and fitness levels. It happens to even those who have skipped desert at holidays or birthdays to “watch the extra calories” or “fit into my bathing suit”.
You are right on track exercising regularly when, one day, you just can’t seem to work up the strength or willpower to get there. Why? What gives? For each of us that answer can be different.
Most importantly, the only way to overcome this hurdle is to indentify the cause.
Reason #1: You don’t have enough time
I hear this excuse more than any other. While it is true that we all have obligations and commitments such as family, spouse, kids, little league, work events, birthdays, parties and the list can go on but, just like showering and brushing our teeth it has to be scheduled and prioritized.
What to do:
- Schedule your daily 30 minute workout. When you write it down and schedule things around your workout instead of squeezing your workouts in, it gets done.
- Maximize your time, effort and workouts by doing less individualized work (ex. tricep kickbacks with a dumbell) and try replacing them with compound movements that involve the entire body (ex. jumping jacks, squat and press with dumbells, walking lunges). This will ensure that you are buring more total calories, stimulating the central nervous system to spike the metabolism and finishing your workout much quicker.
- Try using supersets where you alternate using opposite bodyparts such as biceps and triceps or upper and lower body together. This eliminates down time and keeps you moving quickly through your workout to maximize your time.
- Schedule shorter sessions. Most people you see in a gym month after month look exactly the same even though they are spending hours working out a day. Cutting down your workout time might actually provide you with better results. If you only have 30 minutes, you can still get a great workout, so long as you push yourself hard. You don’t really need to dedicate an hour or more to see results.
- Make it convenient. If you drive home in the completely opposite direction of your gym or bootcamp, you might want to consider changing to a more convenient location. While the trainer and the environment is extremely important, you need to limit your excuses as well.
Reason #2: You don’t see results
You’ve been working out for 2-3 months and you aren’t seeing results so your motivation begins to diminish. If this is the case, you need to reevaluate your fitness gameplan.
What to do:
- Set up a consultation with a trainer to see if another set of eyes can see what directions you may be putting too much or too little emphasis. Often times it’s a much smaller tweak than a giant overhaul.
- Set realistic goals. If you started working out a few months ago 20 pounds overweight with 25% bodyfat, you cannot expect to lose that kind of fat (notice I didn’t say weight or pounds?) in that short of time unless you are on a starvation diet or severely overtraining. If your goal seems unrealistic, it probably is! Break your larger goals in to yearly, quarterly (the best type of fitness goals), monthly and weekly.
- Use measurements and get your bodyfat % professionally measured. If you take two ladies who are 130 pounds and one of them has 15% bodyfat and the other is 25% bodyfat, you would never even guess that they weighed within 30 pounds of each other. It makes that much of a different. Results take time and skinny-fat looks like empty grocery bags all over your body! Sorry….too detailed? 🙂
- Eat healthy. Look at what you are eating. Is your diet set up to give you the most amount of energy for your workout and then fuel the muscle afterwards without disrupting its fat burning effects? Do you snack in front of the TV or have that extra beer or wine during the week? These will all add up and slow your progress. When your diet is on track, your efforts in the gym will be much more noticeable.
#3: You are self-conscious or intimidated
If it’s been a while since you last worked out, you may feel slightly embarrassed by your current shape when you’re in the gym with all the other guys and ladies who seem like they’ve been there for years.
Or, if you’re a newbie and don’t understand many of the basic concepts, you might feel intimidated by all the different equipment and machines.
What to do:
- Remember, if everyone was happy with the way they looked gyms and bootcamps wouldn’t exist!
- Start with a group training program like a Fitness Bootcamp. Even though there are several people of all different fitness levels at each session, you can rest assured that each person has paid there dues when they were starting out just as you are. They have felt that uncomfortable feeling of being new, not going what is going on or even knowing where to hang their keys!! As crazy as that sounds, just about every new bootcamper clings onto their keys, towel and water bottle like Linus from the old Peanuts episodes carrying his security blanket. Humans fear the unknown and it’s easiest to migrate to the path of least resistance.
- Train with a buddy. Find a friend who’s also interested in getting in shape. Your workouts will be more enjoyable and you’ll have a spotter and a motivator.
- Don’t take yourself too seriously! Do you get paid to workout? Do you lose extra pounds only if you do an exercise exactly perfect? No! So enjoy the process and take each new challenge as something new to learn and not something I can’t do.
Final thoughts
Exercise is a lifelong journey, there is no end. If it took longer than 3 months to put on the extra pounds, it’s probably going to take at least that or longer to get it off.
We all go through periods of ups and downs with working out just as we do in life.
They key is how you finish the journey, not the bumps you overcame along the road.
Instead those bumps solidify the foundation of our fitness goals by learning from your mistakes and not repeating them.
Take a minute later on tonight and make 3 commitments to yourself:
- Schedule a 30 minute block daily for exercise (here is the fun part…since you only need 4 days a week of exercise, those other 3 days become your personal time! Use it to run an errand, catch up on Facebook news or get your nails done. This becomes your 30-60 minute “Me Time” everyday!
- Identify where your last fitness efforts failed you. What didn’t you like about it? What are you looking for in a fitness program? Was my diet tailored around my personal needs or am I trying to lose weight on a ‘cookie cutter diet’?
- Write down 3 things that make you uncomfortable with yourself, your fitness program or your lack of 🙂
If you need someone to bounce these ideas off of, please send me your answers I’d love to help!
No catch, no gimmicks, cancel anytime. I only want to help people that want to be helped!
Yours for better health, life and energy,
Derek Kuryliw, Certified Personal Trainer and Sports Nutritionist
www.LiveFitTraining.co
