How many goals are you working on at once?

Goals - Keep a Journal or Log of Your Progress Towards Your Goal and Note How You Feel Each Day

Goals - Keep a Journal or Log of Your Progress Towards Your Goal and Note How You Feel Each Day

If you expect that you should follow a regimented schedule when in the past you’ve always been the type to “wing it” or you try to impose a number of new habits on yourself all at once, it’s unlikely that you will be able to succeed. We only have so much energy and so much focus and if we spread it too thin, nothing gets the right amount of attention.

Additionally, the word “priority” kind of loses its meaning if you start to label everything as “a priority.” Restrict the number of changes you’re trying to make at any given time (begin working out, start eating 5 meals a day instead of 2 or 3, never skip breakfast, take the stairs at work instead of the elevator, etc.). You shouldn’t try to make more than 1 to 3 changes at a time. Pick the very most important to you and leave the rest aside for now. When you accomplish one of your goals, celebrate, reward yourself, and pick the next most important goal to you.

Keep a journal or log of your progress towards your goal and note how you feel each day. You can review it each week and learn to spot where you have difficulties sticking to your goal.

Are you building on past skills or trying to learn everything at once?

Drastic changes are very hard to incorporate into your life. Children understand that when you’re doing something like playing a video game or working your way up through school, you have to get through level 1 before you can move on to level 2. For some reason, as adults, this concept all but disappears and we expect ourselves to master all of something immediately, rather than gradually.

When you make your goals, don’t make them so difficult that you set yourself up to fail. If you’ve never worked out, don’t decide to start working out for one-and-a-half hour gym sessions. It’s not good for your body and it’s even worse for your motivation and follow-through.

You need to be reasonable with yourself. Start with the least you can do in one or two areas and commit to doing that for a few weeks.  Then, when you make your next goal, take it up a notch. You are more likely to be on track 3 months down the line if you do that then if you overdo it now.

Will it take longer than a half of a season?

If your goal will last longer than 6 weeks, break it down into smaller, incremental goals. Don’t plan to “lose 35 lbs by Bathing Suit Season” in the early winter. It’s fine to have that in the back of your mind as a final goal, but focus on the next few weeks. Plan instead to “lose 10 lbs in the next 6 weeks.” Once those 6 weeks are up, you can reward yourself for a job well-done and, if you want to, renew the goal. You may find at that time that there is a more important goal that you need to work on at that time.

Having goals that feel like they will never end will sap you of your motivation. Not to mention that priorities change and if all your goals are so extremely long term you may never get to the end of any of your goals before another priority swoops in to dethrone it. 6 Weeks is short enough that you can usually make a solid commitment to the goal, and it’s long enough that you will develop good habits you won’t need to work hard at maintaining when you turn your focus to another goal.

Will a stranger be able to judge when you’ve reached your goal?

Goals like “look good in a bathing suit,” “workout enough” or “finally be the size I want” are far too subjective. Your goal needs to be set objectively so that you will know exactly when you have achieved it in a very specific way. If your neighbor or grocer couldn’t measure your progress, you need to refine your goal. Again, you may have something else in the back of your mind, but the goal you set (and accomplish) needs to be specific.

So give your goals the 4-question check-up and see if they pass the test. If your goals are reasonable, they will stick; and that’s the best way to Get Fit Fast.

If weight maintenance and cardiovascular endurance aren’t motivating you enough to get up and move your body a little, here are five more reasons exercise is worth fitting into your lifestyle.

Exercise prevents chronic disease

Exercise has been shown to help combat osteoporosis, heart disease, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, some types of cancer, and more. If any drug or superfood that came onto the market could claim as many benefits, it would fly off the shelves at an unprecedented rate. Exercise is free and available to you at all times, yet is one of your most powerful allies in your quest for a long, healthy life.

Exercise Can Make You Smile!

Exercise Can Make You Smile!

Exercise can make you smile

Exercise promotes the release of feel-good chemicals; these substances can make you feel calmer and happier. It can also help clear some of the stress chemicals that your body releases which allows you to feel more relaxed and to ease mental and physical tension.

There is even some evidence that exercise helps fight depression and anxiety. And aside from the immediate physical benefit to your mood. There is also the self-satisfaction and confidence boost that comes from the knowledge that you’re challenging yourself and doing something good for yourself.

Not to mention that it does feel good to watch your body get healthier, stronger, and more attractive.

Exercise helps put you to sleep

It can be hard to catch your forty winks if your body has sat inactive all day. Increasing your level of physical activity early in the day may help combat insomnia. Just don’t work out too late in the evening or you may find it has the opposite effect. If working out at your chosen time doesn’t seem to improve your sleep after a couple of weeks, try working out in the mid to late afternoon.

Exercise keeps you up late into the night

If the other reasons don’t turn your head, this one might. Exercise can help improve your sex life. On top of improving your confidence, appearance, and mood, it helps improve your strength, circulation, endurance, energy, and flexibility. And all these contribute to a more satisfying sex life.

Exercise can be enjoyable for its own sake

Finally, if all you think of when you think of exercise is an exercise bike, a treadmill, and free weights, you may feel less than enthusiastic about embarking on a “fitness plan.” There is a whole world of activities that you can explore in the name of both exercise ~and~ fun.

As long as you get your body moving, you’re getting exercise; so pick something you love to do that gets your heart pumping and puts a smile on your face and enjoy it in the name of fitness!

Make Time For Visualizing Your Goals

First, try to take some time, everyday if you can, to picture what your body will look and feel like once you’ve reached your ultimate goal. It’s great to do this first thing in the morning while your mind is still fresh and before the day begins so that you can set the tone of the day early. Visualize this in as vivid detail as you can. Picture the strong, light feel of your body; really experience the pride and sense of accomplishment.

If You Can't Picture Yourself at Your Final Goal, Don’t Force It. Instead, Picture What It Will Feel Like To Put On Pants And Realize They’re Too Loose

If You Can't Picture Yourself at Your Final Goal, Don’t Force It. Instead, Picture What It Will Feel Like To Put On Pants And Realize They’re Too Loose

If you have trouble picturing yourself at your final end goal and in ideal shape, don’t try to force it, it will come with time. Instead, just picture what it will feel like to put on pants and realize they’re too loose. Maybe you can picture that you’re getting ready for work in the morning and pull your pants on without unzipping them without even realizing it.

Or picture an important significant other in your life telling you how great you look. Whatever about that “Wow! Look at the difference!” moment that is most important to you and feels the most real. As you practice this, you will be able to take it farther and farther.

Motivation aside, this kind of visualization is especially useful if you have felt out of shape for a long time, it may have become a part of your self-image, part of your self-concept. Visualizing your fitness or weight loss goals should be as much  a part of your fitness plan as cardio or weights.

It might be more difficult to face challenges every day if, somewhere inside, you feel that this is just who you are and in the end you’ll just end up back here anyway.The only way to defeat old beliefs like that is to chip away at them slowly by replacing them with new images. Also, by altering this image, you will be less likely to have trouble maintaining your ideal shape when you get there.

Confront Negative Self-Talk

You may also find that there is a lot of negativity that springs up while you are trying to picture this. “You’ll never look like that!” “Who am I kidding?” “This will take forever!” “It’s too hard!” And that is just scratching the surface of the nasty things the mind can come up with. I’ve heard people recommend that you talk back to these negative comments and, if that works for you, then by all means use that. For me however, that only gave more substance to those thoughts.

The only way to silence my negative inner-dialogue was to outright ignore it. Treat this negative “you can’t succeed at this” voice like a well-meaning but uninformed stranger distributing advice. Nod politely and then go about your own business, completely dismissing the comments, as though it hadn’t even happened. Whether you confront the negative talk or ignore it depends a lot on your personality and usual tendencies though so go with what you feel will work. You know yourself best.

It’s too easy to let the image you have of yourself stand in the way of change and keep you fitting that same old mold you have been. By changing that mental image, you can keep your incentive on those days when you might prefer to throw in the towel, and you can change that self-created mold to something that better matches the future you’re trying to head toward. And, when you do get there, this new image will help keep you there, living inside the ideal image you had the tenacity to envision for yourself.

For more help, check out our other posts & articles about motivation on the Get Fit Fast site.

Preparation

In the Preparation stage, you have made the decision to get fit and are getting set to begin. You feel that the ‘pros’ in favor of fitness outweigh any ‘cons’ and you may be gathering information, purchasing equipment like a skipping rope or free weights, signing up for a gym or calorie-conscious cooking class, or brainstorming a few ways that you will improve your day-to-day fitness levels.

People in this stage are more resolved about their fitness. They may have a good grasp on what they will begin doing, and/or have set a date to begin.

As with the previous stage, if you are in this stage, be careful not to linger here too long. Making plans, looking up recipes, buying exercise equipment or DVDs, or gathering information can feel very productive, and it is, as long as you don’t stay stuck at this stage, planning and preparing, instead of ever beginning.

The trap in this stage is that you feel good taking these steps, and you should, but you will actually need to begin for those steps to bear fruit.

The 5 Stage Plan Will Help You Reach Your Weight Loss & Fitness Goals & Then Maintain Them

The 5 Stage Plan Will Help You Reach Your Weight Loss & Fitness Goals & Then Maintain Them

Set a Date To Begin

If you are in this stage, set a date to begin, and make it within the next 7 days. Don’t wait until your birthday, Saint Valentine’s Day, Cinco de Mayo, or any other milestone. This adds more pressure than you need and can contribute to perfectionist thinking.

Did the thought of starting in the next seven days sound impossible to you? Then you may be over-thinking things and over-planning. Fitness really isn’t that complicated. Our free “7-Secrets to Getting Fit and Losing Weight – Fast!” report available on this site is full of information presented in a clear and succinct way. It’s all the information you need to get started (and a little extra to keep you improving).

So there’s no excuse to spend the next 4 weeks “researching” instead of starting. And you don’t need to buy any equipment to begin either. For cardio, you can power-walk around your neighborhood, borrow your child’s skipping rope, or just dance to music in your living room.

For a weight training component, while many second hand stores carry sets of extra free weights, and a 3-weight set can be very reasonable even if you have to buy it new, you can begin improving muscle tone without buying a single item.

You can record the next Yoga or Pilates workout on cable TV and use it to help you strengthen those muscles. So make the commitment today to move on to the next stage by this time next week.

Action

The Action stage has a misleading name. I prefer to think of it as the Habit-Building stage, or even the Productive Mistakes stage. This is the stage in which you are putting in a deliberate effort and are actively trying to change behaviors and keep old habits from creeping back in.

Some people think of this stage as the stage when they are “on” a diet and fitness program, but I think that kind of black-and-white thinking misses the mark on what this stage is actually about. People with this view often see mistakes as failures or setbacks; but that’s what the Habit-Building stage is for.

This is the stage in which you notice the problems that come up, and you problem-solve ways to get around them next time. And problems will come up; things you don’t expect will challenge your goals in ways you aren’t necessarily prepared for.

That’s why it is also the Productive Mistakes stage. Every “mistake” along the way prepares you for similar situations down the road because you come up with better ways to handle them and you find yourself encountering fewer and fewer situations that you aren’t prepared for or that throw you off.

It’s also the stage in which you need to keep your motivation high and deal with resistance (both inner and outer) to your new habits. (We will talk more about resistance in an upcoming post.) Thankfully, it only takes about 21 days to solidify new habits, so the first three or four weeks of your program is a great time to reward yourself often, and to reinforce the reasons you are trying to change your habits to begin with.

Make lists of the reasons you want to be more fit often. Write out how things will be different when you are fit and what being fit will feel like for you. Whenever your motivation starts to lag, read a few of your entries to remind yourself.

Finally, get a lot of support in this stage. Whether it’s from an online community; a healthy and motivated friend; or even a good blog, magazine, or fitness-oriented television show.

Maintenance

The light at the end of the tunnel is the Maintenance stage. At this point, you are ready for most situations that come up, your habits have changed, and you don’t have to think about it much anymore, if at all. A slip or situation that catches you off guard may send you back to the Action stage, where you will be more vigilant for a short period, but for the most part, fitness has become second nature to you, and you are one of those people that inspire others to move forward in their own trip through the stages.

The maintenance stage isn’t about having reached your ideal weight or your final goal, it’s about having incorporated and solidified the habits that will get you to your ideal weight and keep you there for the rest of your life.

And this holy grail stage, this point we all want to be in, is really only a few short weeks away from this very moment, no matter what stage you’re in right now.

It will occasionally require that you restrain yourself from indulging in every passing craving you have (though, you can intelligently indulge in more of your cravings on the road to fitness than on the road to quitting). It takes some willingness to put effort toward something that you won’t always feel like following through on; and both can be hard to get started and lend to much procrastination before those first few steps.

With so many commonalities, it makes sense for us to look at the five stages successful ex-smokers have gone through, and to apply them to our fitness goals. Today, we’ll look at the first two stages as they apply to the greatest number of people who are or feel they are unfit.

Whether Its Losing Weight or Getting Fit, Knowing the Stages of Change Will Help You Get There

Whether Its Losing Weight or Getting Fit, Knowing the Stages of Change Will Help You Get There

Pre-Contemplation

The first of the five stages is Pre-Contemplation. This is the stage where you aren’t considering changing your diet or exercise habits and you have no plans for changing them in the future. People in this stage may not be open to discussions about the health risks of obesity and inactivity or they may greatly underestimate how those risks apply to them.

We’ve all heard the smoker defense that their friend’s cousin’s wife’s great-aunt smoked every day of her life until she was 97. Someone who is overweight is similarly deluded that they aren’t at greater risk for diabetes, heart disease, and other lifestyle-related diseases.

Chances are that you aren’t in this stage if you have come across this article. If, however, you do happen to be in this stage, read on. You may find that fitness is not the boring self-denying activity you think it is.

Contemplation

The second stage is the Contemplation stage. At this point, you begin thinking about getting fit but aren’t quite ready to begin. You might be thinking that one of these days you would like to do something about the expanding waistline or the shortness of breath when you climb a couple of flights of stairs with a few bags of groceries, but no real planning is happening.

You are more aware of the consequences of your lack of fitness to your health, your quality of life, and possibly even your self-esteem, and you have started to feel like this is something you would like to change, one day. People in this stage might browse fitness sites and magazines or talk about wanting to be more fit, but there isn’t any actual effort being put into it yet. A large proportion of unfit people are in this stage.

If you find yourself in the contemplation stage, start by asking yourself how long you would like to stay in this stage. And don’t let yourself get away with a politician-style non-answer. When you are thinking about future fitness goals, when do you really mean by “one day” or “soon”?

Can you think of 2 or 3 ways in which your life would be improved if you were more fit? Take the time to write the answers down in vivid detail as a way to remind yourself of why you might want to move on past this stage.

Then, realize that fitness takes much less effort than you may be imagining. You might think you have to sit down and work out a detailed fitness plan, alter your schedule, stop eating all your favorite foods, etc. This is nonsense. Sure you may find yourself interested in getting more involved down the road, but getting fit requires very little effort; definitely less than you expect.

In fact, if you feel you would like to lose about 10% of what you weigh, it’s as simple as serving yourself portions that are about 10% smaller than you normally would and moving around about 10% more. Just approximate it. Cut the slice of cake about 10% smaller than you usually have. Park at the far end of the lot, rather than trying to squeeze in as close to the building as you can.

That’s it. If you feel you would like to lose more than 10-20% of your current weight, start by trying to cut your portion sizes by 10 or 20% and see how that goes. Don’t overdo it, don’t make it more difficult than it needs to be. Eat less, move more. It really is that simple.

In the next post in this series (Reshape Your Butt Using the Stages of Butting Out – Part 2), we’ll look at how you can adapt the third, fourth, and fifth stages of quitting to your fitness goals and look at some “advanced simplicity” if you want to take things a little farther.

Let’s see, I want to lose ten pounds. .  . Okay, then what?  There are many women ten pounds lighter than I am who don’t have one-tenth of the strength and endurance I have now.  Do you see where I’m going with this?  One of the most difficult and ignored parts of beginning a fitness regime is taking the time to define our fitness goals.

Attaining our fitness goals isn’t often a priority in our lives filled with work, kids, bills, and spouses. The biggest challenge for many of us is taking the time to think through our goals and plans.  Yet this is the first step in designing a systematic plan that will lead to success. To better set your goals, you might want to follow these steps:

Make An Action Plan

Setting Fitness Goals Leads To Success!

Setting Fitness Goals Leads To Success!

Our goals make a picture of where we want to be in a given time.  But to get there, you need a step-by-step action plan.  This plan must act as a roadmap directing you to your new destination.  A specific, proactive plan will hone your efforts, and push you through the inevitable speed bumps.

Set Long and Short-Term Goals

Rather than becoming overwhelmed with one or two long-term goals, set short-term goals as well.  One accomplishment may be to workout four times in one week.  Another could be to run for 30 minutes straight.  You can give your self-small rewards like bubble bath or seeing a new movie.

Write Them Down

Make these goals your personal contract.  Write them in a private notebook or in your computer so that they become like a personal contract.  If you like, you can post your goals in strategic areas such as your bedroom, office, or better yet, on your refrigerator.

Realistic

Make sure your goals are challenging AND realistic. Studies have shown that people, who set difficult goals for themselves, accomplish more and feel better.  However, setting unattainable could leave you injured, frustrated, and disgusted with the whole fitness process.

Measurable

Establish goals that you can easily measure. “I want to lose weight” or “I want to build muscle” are not specific objectives.  Rather, use “I want to lose 10 pounds in two months” or “I want to decrease my body fat by five percent.”  The more specific your goals, the easier they are to achieve.

Monitored

Complete a diet and workout journal daily and religiously.  They are one of the best tools for attaining your goals.  Sometimes, subtle food changes can occur from one day to the next that are only visible by reading a journal at the end of one or two weeks.

Positive

Do not use goals to berate yourself; instead they must be positive. Identify goals that will bring out your good attributes.  For example, “I’m a morning person so I will begin my workouts at 7:00 am.  That’s certainly better than “I will no longer eat like a pig.”

As for me, I’ve written several long and short-term goals in three areas: nutrition, strength, and endurance.  One of my end goal is to run a half-marathon this summer.  What are your goals?

I have personally noticed two types of situations that are susceptible to the reappearance of that black-and-white mindset in my own thinking habits. We’ll look at what I call the “on/off trap” in this post and the “succeed/fail trap” in the next.

The on/off trap

The on/off trap seems to occur during holidays, while on vacation or work-related travel, or during any other event or period when eating healthy will be made more challenging. You may have been following a good diet & nutrition plan with healthy eating guidelines for some time and suddenly a situation comes up in which you won’t have as much flexibility.

You’ll be eating big meals with family, eating in restaurants, or otherwise just won’t have the opportunity to give your diet the attention you have been up to this point. At this point, you may drift into counterproductive thinking if you start thinking that, since you can’t be completely “on” your plan, you are “off” of it. And since you are “off” your plan, it doesn’t really matter what you do anymore.

So, you get to your party or your travel destination and proceed to eat anything and everything, figuring that you had better take advantage now because, when you’re back “on” your plan, you’ll need to be “good” again.

This is… well… a little crazy. It’s like getting a parking ticket and, since that wasn’t planned for, and your budget is now technically blown, you go out and spend as much of your money as you can manage, figuring you’ll get back “on” your budget the following month. Some of us even get a jump on this.

We decide that since we’re going to dinner later today or going to be away next week and won’t be able to follow our good eating habits as thoroughly, we might as well not worry about it at all right now either; we’ll just start again after the event or the trip is over.

Making Better Choices When Eating Out Will Help You Lose Weight

Making Better Choices When Eating Out Will Help You Lose Weight

There is no reason why you can’t enjoy the fare offered where you are going to be; but you don’t necessarily have to have as much of it as is offered to you.  You simply need to make better choices. Share half your desert with someone, use less butter or skip it altogether, pass on the gravy… just enjoy the parts of the meal that you really want to enjoy, and pass on the b-list indulgences.

While you’re away from home, save half your lunch for the mid-afternoon munchies, try to only indulge in one or items each day, have one less after-dinner drink… I’m sure you can think of a number of different ways you can partake while still not going completely overboard.

The important thing to remember is that you don’t have to give up on everything, but you also don’t have to indulge in everything. And you don’t have to be “on” or “off” of some diet or plan. Instead, think of it as moving toward a destination.

You can take a road trip and enjoy a few attractions that delay your arrival but are really worth it to you, while continuing past those that aren’t in favor of making better time. Stopping along the way to visit the wax museum doesn’t mean you have to turn around and go home.

There will often be a reason why it’s “not the right time” to begin. For whatever reason (usually we blame a lack of time), it would be impossible to do it “right,” and so we wait for a later, better time. This of course implies that if you aren’t doing everything you think you should do, you might as well not do anything at all; and this kind of black-and-white thinking can keep you from ever beginning to move in the direction of your goals. And it can keep you from ever achieving them.

Do You Take an All-or-Nothing Approach to Fitness & Weightg Loss?

Do You Take an All-or-Nothing Approach to Fitness & Weightg Loss?

If you aren’t happy with your current state of health or your fitness level, but aren’t doing anything to change it, there is a good chance you are falling into this trap. If you feel you would like to change your weight or your level of fitness, there is no sensible reason not to begin improving, bit by bit, now. We really don’t need to think it must be ‘all or nothing’.

All you need to do is select one thing that you feel would have a positive impact on your fitness and begin doing that. Cut your regular desert size in half, use half the mayonnaise you usually would use in a sandwich, take the stairs instead of the elevator once a day; there are innumerable tweaks that can be made to your routine to peel a pound or two off over time. But don’t get onto the track of trying to do them all, just pick one and go with it for a while. After a week or two, pick another.

You can also have a look at our free 7-Secrets to Getting Fit and Losing Weight – Fast! report, pick any tip that you think would be easy to fit into your life, and get started on it. Today. Not tomorrow, not on New Year’s, not next week. Pick something so easy that you can start it right now. These changes will add up quickly, and their effects are often more permanent than attempting to completely overhaul your habits.

By now, you might hear your mind whispering “But, if I wait until after the holidays/until my vacation/until this work project is over, I can work on all 7 secrets, or work on every single habit that I want to change. That will be so much more effective. I will be a picture of fitness and self-discipline. Yes; if I wait, I will be able to do it right. And it’s only worth doing if I am going to do it right”.

This is no more than black and white thinking, and it is sabotaging your plans. If you’re like me, you may have noticed that these perfect moments when we will have time to carry through our perfect plans in their entirety never seem to come. Some new point in the future replaces the old one and the cycle goes on.

But let’s give the thought that soon everything will change the benefit of the doubt. Let’s assume that you will make these changes all at once just as soon as some specific moment in time comes. Will you be hurt by the fact that you will have already lost 2, 3, 5, 10 pounds in the meanwhile, increased your strength, or improved your cardiovascular fitness through earlier efforts? Will you be cursing the moment you reach your goal because you got there just a little sooner? I somehow doubt it. So, while you’re waiting for that perfect moment, you might as well make a few tweaks in preparation for it.

So, every time you here yourself saying “I will… when…” in relation to your fitness goals, ask yourself if you really must wait, or if there is something, anything, you can do in the meanwhile to get things rolling. Then, begin doing it that day, that very moment. And you might find that when your “when…” moment comes around, you will have already reached all your fitness goals.

Training for a specific one-off event – whatever your level – is called ‘reverse training’.  You set a date, and design your program backwards.  Makes sense?  Well, yes and no.

Make Your Fitness Goal Achievable

The problem is you aren’t starting from your current level of fitness.  You’re starting from where you think you need to be to achieve your goal.  And frankly, that may not be where you really are!  It’s easy with reverse training to visualize yourself achieving something that’s beyond your capabilities in the time you have – and an unachievable goal is a recipe for disappointment.

Set Your Fitness Goal And Plan Backwards To Create Your Training Plan

Set Your Fitness Goal And Plan Backwards To Create Your Training Plan

The most important thing to remember when you are designing a reverse training plan is to be realistic about what you can achieve.  If  your first marathon is in three months, and you’ve never run more than a 10K, don’t set out for a sub 3:30 time.  Aim to finish, even if it means walking some, and build your fitness program accordingly.  If it’s your first triathlon, and you aren’t a strong swimmer, don’t build a program that has you swimming 3000m tomorrow morning.

The same goes for experienced athletes –especially if you are coming off an injury or a rest period.  It’s easy to overestimate what you can do, especially when motivation is high.  You see yourself at your best, remember yourself in peak form, and forget that you need to build your program in small steps.  The fastest way to lose that motivation is to look at a training plan week after week where you haven’t met your goals.  Keep it realistic, and it will work.

Add Some Variety To Your Training Goals

That’s not to say that reverse training doesn’t have benefits.  You are focused on a single outcome – all your training is designed to support that one event or activity, and that will help to narrow and define your training program.  But when you do that, don’t forget to think ahead – are you really only going to run 10Ks this summer? Or do you think you might want to try a mountain bike race too?

If you focus too much on one activity, you may find you don’t have the skills or fitness for something else that comes along and takes your fancy.  It’s great to be determined and motivated to reach your goal, but a little variety in your program will keep you fresh, prevent injury, and allow you to try out something else if the mood takes you.

Allow For Some ‘Contingency Time’

Always allow plenty of ‘contingency time’.  Something is bound to come up – you may get sick, you may get injured.  You might need to go away for work, or move house, who knows?  If you have a training plan that will only work if you follow it religiously week after week, with no scope for a few days or even a week out here and there, you will put yourself under unnecessary pressure.  Make sure your plan allows for a few days every few weeks for you to miss training sessions without losing too much ground.  That way, you won’t feel you need to push yourself too hard if you aren’t feeling well or something comes up.

Remember To Include Some Goal Recovery Time

If you need a rest or a break, don’t miss out recovery weeks or easy sessions, and try to compress your hard sessions.  Just absorb your contingency time, and pick up where you left off.  This way, the worst outcome is you arrive on the big day most of the way through your program rather than all of the way, instead of not arriving at all because you’ve gotten injured or sick.

Finally, remember, it’s only one event.  You have a lifetime ahead of great achievements, and if this one doesn’t work out, or you miss it due to injury, illness, or just life’s little circumstances, it’s not the end of the world.  There’s always another event – pick yourself up, and start planning for the next one!

Picture Credit: Courtesy of MarathonFoto

Watch Out For The Plateau Effect

Another danger with motivation and training is that you can reach a plateau, and mentally and physically you stay on it, stalling any progress you are making, or even slipping backwards. There is a danger with training in that you can enter a comfort zone where you a reasonably happy with what you have achieved, which of course is great, but be careful of the potentially detrimental effects of “switching off” a little. The common thread that binds us in fitness and nutrition is the desire to improve.

Whether you want to lose weight, or achieve better fitness, or both, you are pushing your body to constantly adapt in the way that you want it to. And these blog,s and GetFitFast.com in general, is all about giving you the best methods to achieve your goals.

Challenge Your body To Adapt

But remember, your body needs stimulus to adapt, change and develop. If you stay at the same level of training intensity all the time, your body will inevitably become used to it, and it will become more efficient at achieving that level of physical activity. That can mean that you burn less calories doing that activity, and ultimately your metabolism may slow.

Remember, when we are trying to lose weight, the aim is to stimulate your metabolism and to force your body to adapt by introducing new activities, or greater physical challenges, for example by refreshing your resistance training program from time to time with different exercises, and by steadily increasing resistance.

Pick A Training Partner Who Is Stronger And More Experienced Than You For Better Results And More Motivation

Pick A Training Partner Who Is Stronger And More Experienced Than You For Better Results And More Motivation

Get Yourself A Training Partner

Where does a training partner fit into all this? A training partner, carefully chosen, can help you with motivation and give you an extra edge in your training. If you train with a partner, you can develop a team spirit, and missing training becomes more difficult because you can feel that you are letting the team down as well as yourself.

In addition to that, you can add in a healthy element of competition. That doesn’t mean to say that every training session needs to be a contest, but a training partner can help to push you to levels you might not achieve on your own. Personally, I like to choose training partner for the gym, and on the bike who is stronger than me, for 2 reasons: first, their strength pushes me to achieve greater strength, and secondly, you can often learn a great deal from a trainer or athlete who is stronger and more experienced than you.

Don’t Forget Your Fundamental Motivation For Getting Fit

A note of caution, however. Remember our free ‘7-Secrets to Getting Fit and Losing Weight – Fast!’ report, and the important advice it contains about motivation. Remember what motivates you at a fundamental level, and keep it at the forefront of your motivational focus. Training partners may come and go but your underlying reasons for wanting better health and fitness will stay with you.

If you rely too heavily on a training partner for motivation, it can have a counterproductive effect on you if your progress becomes too tied up with his/hers or if you go your separate ways. So choose a training partner carefully. Chose someone whose goals are similar to yours and who is at a similar level of fitness. The right person can help you push yourself to even greater goals!