Most people start a health and fitness program with fervor, but their good intentions soon fizzle out. If you find staying with your health and fitness program a battle, you should know that there are tried and tested methods to ensure that you do.
Why Do Most Health and Fitness Programs Fail?
We often hear of someone taking up a gym membership and ending up not utilizing it. Or someone takes up a diet and soon find themselves unable to keep to it. Some even spend on expensive fitness wear and then end up using it to lounge around at home. People seem unable to follow through on their ambitious plans. Seldom is the program to blame. People are unable to find the motivation to persist with their health and fitness programs.
You need the right kind of mindset to follow through with your chosen health and fitness program. Your motivation to persist cannot come from someone else. It must come from within you. And you need to work on your motivation even before you start on any program.
Motivation and Determination – Your Most Important Allies
What keeps keep your health and fitness program alive, are your own motivation and determination. Motivation and determination can be seen as two sides of the same coin. The more motivated your are, the more determined you will be to stick with your plans. Your motivation must come from within. No gym instructor, doctor, or dietician will be of much help if you are not motivated.
For many it could be a life or death situation, and there is no better motivation than that. However, for most people, the best way to stay motivated, is to think about the end result. Specific goals are better than vague ones. Set yourself milestones to achieve. When you break it down in this way, your smaller victories will encourage you to continue with your health and fitness program to the end. Of course, when it comes to your health and fitness program, it is better to think of it as a permanent lifestyle change, rather than something you only have to do for a certain period of time.
Selecting the Right Program
The health and fitness industry is one of the most saturated industries in the world today. One reason is that people jumping from one program to another, without completing any, and spending a lot of money on the way. In fact, many fitness centers bank on the knowledge that only a small percentage of people who join actually use their facilities for any length of time. Many health program and diet plan vendors are more interested in selling their services, than in helping you to find the right program for you.
Finding the right health and fitness program for your physical condition and circumstances is the first step to ensuring that you remain with the program. There are plenty information available online, for comparing different service providers and vendors. Be critical, and be sure to search for forum reviews and comments. If you want to improve your knowledge of fitness training and dieting, visit a bookstore (online or ‘brick and mortar’) and get yourself authoritative books on these subjects.
When evaluating fitness centers, there are a number of factors to take into consideration, over an above the cost, such as its location, the times it will be open, the availability of personal trainers, the range of equipment, and the facilities and types of training they offer. Any shortcoming could eventually cause you to abandon your plans in the future.
If you are not in good physical shape or have not had a medical check up recently, you should see your physician and discuss your plans with him, before you embark on one. In fact, many fitness centers will ask you to undergo a medical examination before they’ll accept you.
Starting Slow – Getting Into a Routine
The key to staying with any health and fitness program is to start slow. Staying within your limits will increase your enjoyment. Overdoing it initially may even cause you injury, taking you out of the exercise program, and causing you to have to start all over again. It will also avoid initial stiffness or muscle pain initially, which could result in you avoiding exercise for a few days. As your fitness and stamina increase, you will be able to exert yourself for longer.
Most fitness centers will have structured exercise program for working out. If you are joining a gym after a long period of physical inactivity, you they will instruct you to focus more on building your stamina first, by for instance, using the treadmill or exercise bikes. Once you have built up your body’s capabilities, you will include resistance and weight training into your routine.
It is extremely important too, to establish a routine. Allocate certain days and times every week to your fitness center or gym visit and stick to them. You will find it difficult to keep with a program, if you don’t do this, and leave it as a spur-of-the-monent decision, to do only when you get the opportunity.
The same applies when you are trying a new diet. Most of the time, there is no need to give up all your favorite foods all at once. This could actually cause stress and anxiety, and make you feel worse off than before. Instead, you could start by dropping one or two of the unhealthy food items from your diet at the start, and work on the others over a period of time. Even when you are on a strict diet, it is normally possible and even advisable occasionally to treat yourself to your favorite off-diet meal or snack without any adverse effect.
If you are trying to give up smoking, the best approach is normally to reduce the number of cigarettes you have over time. You should also find a good reason why you need to stop smoking. In any health activity or program, your motivation and determination are key to your success.
Determine Your Objectives
One of the biggest reasons for people not staying with health and fitness programs, is that they do not have a clear idea what they want to achieve. You need to determine your specific objectives, whether it be losing weight, increasing general fitness, or improving your physique. This will give your something to track, and ensure that you stay motivated. And it will also save you from spending a lot of time and effort on less effective activities.
It follows that you should look for a health and fitness program that addresses your specific needs, rather than one generally suited to all. This will ensure that you see results quickly and will motivate you to keep with the program. People who successfully follow fitness programs, prioritize certain activities in setting up their fitness regimens. That allows them to focus their energy on the most effective part of the program.
Get Your Friends Involved
Many health and fitness experts advocate working out with a friend, you do much better. If you have someone to go to the gym with you, or diet with you, or accompany you on your morning jogs, you have additional motivation to stick to your health and fitness program. Your friends could be quite instrumental in you accomplishing your goals with your health and fitness program.
There are many reasons why it works. You are less likely to become bored with the program, because you have a soundboard for your achievements and failures. Working our or dieting with a friend is also a form of peer pressure. In fact, it could trigger a healthy form of competition between the two of you to see who can do better at the program. All this keeps you involved in your health and fitness program and also quite motivated.
But even if you’re unable to find someone to work out with you, you will find simply telling friends to you are embarking on a health and fitness program will incentivize you to stay with it, to avoid embarrassment.
Chart Your Progress
A very important aspect of staying with a health and fitness program is to keep tracking your progress. This can keep you motivated, especially when you see that you achieving your goals. Charting your progress continuously will help you immensely.
So, when you are on a diet program, weigh yourself often. When you are jogging, keep track of the distance or number of steps you’re doing with every run. If you are working out at the gym, keep checking your physical measurements. When you are on a program to improve your blood sugar level or your blood pressure, obtain the equipment to keep monitoring it yourself. This is why obtaining one of the newly available smartwatches and fitness trackers is an excellent idea.
Keep the Motivation On – Give Yourself Incentives
Reward yourself for achieving milestones. Of course, rewarding yourself with a high-calorie snack, or time off from gym, would be counter-productive. Find something that you enjoy doing, such as doing a trail walk, going on a trip, an evening at the movie theater, going shopping, or other entertaining activity. By choosing healthy leisure activities you are rewarding yourself, and enhancing your health and fitness progress.
You have to understand something here – When you measure yourself at home and see that you have reduced, you are happy. But you become much happier when you reward yourself for it. When you buy smaller waist jeans you see the practical connotations of your fitness program. You actually see the benefits. This is what motivates you to keep working on in the future. If you see these benefits and then begin rewarding yourself for it, you will see that you are able to push you toward better health and fitness achievements.
Head to the Gym… Even if You Don’t Want to
Seasoned gym visitors will tell you that the most important part of ensuring that you stay with your schedule, is just getting to gym. Most of us will easily find an excuse not to make the trip. You may feel tired, or had a hard day at work, or not have the energy for workout. To counter this, tell yourself that you will do less than your normal routine. Chances are that once you’re exercising, you’ll feel perfectly find, and that will probably complete most of your routine. In fact, studies have shown that this approach works in 90% of cases.
The same applies to all health and fitness activities. If you are feeling to tired to go jogging, convince yourself by saying that it is only for a few minutes. You might tell yourself that you would do nothing more than one lap around the park. But once you’re into it, you feel that you might as well complete the whole thing.
Being Positive About Your Health and Fitness Program
Many people who find themselves unable to stay with their health and fitness program, will start blaming the program. If you’re not strictly following the program, you probably will not see the results you were hoping for. The natural reaction is to conclude that the program is not working, at least not for you.
Condition your mind into thinking positively about the health and fitness program you have joined. There is no reason why you should think that the program won’t work for you. Instead, believe that it will work. Think about all the benefits you will gain – your improved physique, your healthier heart, your improved physical capacity – and you will want to carry through with it. Consider the positive effect your health and fitness program will have on your life and productivity, because your are a healthier and better looking person.
It all boils down to to the fact that the most important thing to make any health and fitness program work is the right motivation. And determination. If you’re motivated and determined enough, you will stay with your health and fitness program, and become a healthier and fitter person.
