When starting a fitness journey, it’s important to allow yourself time to mentally, physically, and emotionally transition into this new lifestyle. Whether this is to lose a certain number of pounds, build muscle all over your body, or to improve a specific area of your body, you must allow yourself time to get there.
We often think that the fastest way to get the fitness results that we so desperately desire is by going on a diet immediately, or joining a gym that we will never 100% commit to. Do not do this or else you will be setting yourself up for failure! Instead, make a commitment to adopt a new lifestyle and leave your old habits behind.
In today’s post I’m going to share with you three ways you are approaching your fitness journey wrong and how you can fix it.
When starting a fitness journey what are goals that you set for yourself right off the back? Maybe it’s to lose a certain number of pounds, to build muscle all over your body, or possibly to even improve a specific area of your body. Whatever your fitness goals may be, build a lifestyle around it instead of committing to temporary practices.
Jumping into the newest diet trend or paying a month gym membership when you don’t even like going to the gym, is not the right way to start your fitness journey. Especially if you want to see results that are not going to be temporary, but are going to last. When we adopt the mindset of having to immediately start a diet and join a gym, we are potentially setting ourselves up for failure right off the back. This is because we are thinking of achieving fast and immediate results, and not necessarily the lifestyle commitment needed in order to truly be as healthy as we possibly can be.
I’m here to help you ditch these old habits! Here are three fitness mistakes you may be making and how to fix them.
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You’re diving right into your fitness journey without a solid plan
This is the number one issue that I notice with a lot of people when starting a fitness journey. I’ve been guilty of this plenty of times as well! Losing weight, building muscle, or even toning our bodies requires more than just eating healthy and increasing our physical activity. In addition to all these things we also have to be open to the possibly of adopting a new lifestyle, not just to achieve our desired results, but to maintain them as well.
This doesn’t have to be anything drastic, and you don’t have to completely eliminate everything that you enjoy as part of your lifestyle. You just simply need to take a deeper look at the type of foods and activities that are, or are not, a part of your lifestyle, and decide whether or not they are helping you achieve your fitness goals.
For example, something that has always been a huge struggle for me in my fitness journey is eating more foods that are high in protein, high in water intake, are more organic, and are home cooked. I’m a junk food junky, I’m not afraid to admit it, and these types of foods are always my go-to whenever I’m looking for a quick snack or meal to eat. However, I knew that by not changing my eating habits I was never going to reach my fitness goals 100%. Even though I was working out intensely and consistently. So, I switched it up.
I stopped buying chips to snack on during the day, and instead opted for more fruits and veggies. I left the soda alone, and instead started focusing on drinking more water, and juice whenever I needed a sugar kick. I also stepped away from fast food and TV dinners, and instead started putting in the work to cook more of my meals. As a result of doing so, I started to see more of the desired transformation that I wanted for my body and overall health because I made a commitment to change that specific area of my lifestyle.
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How to fix it
The best approach is to make a plan for your fitness goals. Here’s what you can do to get the process started.
Step 1: Grab a sheet of paper and write down at least your top 3 fitness goals. That way you know exactly what you are working towards.
Step 2: Next, decide what is going to be the best approach for you. Working out at the gym, at home, walking daily, etc.? This will help you understand the methods you need to adopt in order to reach those goals.
Step 3: The last and most important part is scheduling. Schedule in specific days and times when you will work towards those goals. This is going to help you hold yourself accountable.
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You’re expecting immediate results
Honestly, we all fall into this trap. We tend to think that if we make little changes here and there that we will see results immediately. While this may be true for some people, this is not true that this will be the case for everyone! There are many factors that play into how quickly you will see results. This includes your weight, what your goals are, what you are doing to reach those goals, and of course your genes.
The fact of the matter is that in order to see results you have to put in the hard work, just like with everything else that we do. This means that you have to commit to working out, eating healthy, and any lifestyle changes that you decided you needed to make. Doing so may help produce results faster at the start of your fitness journey, but it is not going to immediately give you the results that you are searching for.
For example, within the first month of working out you may notice that you have lost anywhere from 5-10 pounds. That’s great! However, don’t expect this to be the case for every month. In the beginning our bodies are adjusting to the changes that we are making in regards to our lifestyle, and it responds immediately. Eventually our bodies will get used to these new changes and it plateaus for a while until you’ve made another breakthrough.
Do not get discouraged by this! This is totally normal and is part of the process. Hard work pays off, and so long as you keep at it, your body and your health will continue to transform for the better.
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How to fix it
The best advice that I can give anyone on a fitness journey is to not let it go to your head when you start to see results. Yes, it’s such a great and empowering feeling to see those results. However, that doesn’t mean we stop doing what we were doing to get those results in the first place.
Instead, you have to keep working at it and maintain that consistency that you had in the beginning. There will come a day and time when your body gets used to the changes that are happening, so remaining consistent is extremely important.
I like to remind myself of the lifestyle changes I made that helped me achieve my desired results in the beginning. I do this by keeping track of specific workouts and habits that have been improving my health overall. That way when I switch up whatever routine I’m currently doing, I know which habits worked for me and which ones didn’t.
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You’re not putting in the work to maintain the results you achieve
We’ve all been guilty of this at least once during our fitness journey. We put in the hard work, gets the results we desire, and then just stop doing what got us there altogether. We trick ourselves into believing that once we get down to a certain weight, build muscle in a certain area, or whatever our goals may be, that, that’s it!
We did what had to be done in order to get those results and we don’t have to do anything more.
Wrong! Even when we achieve our results, there is always work that needs to be done in order to maintain those results. This means that whatever changes you made in your lifestyle you have to maintain.
Changing my eating habits and losing 10 pounds wasn’t enough for me to go back to my old eating habits. Instead, I had to continue to eat the foods that were positively impacting my body, and leave the junk food that I used to always run to out of my diet.
At the start this may not be something that you want to do, because you will trick yourself into thinking that you have control over your old habits. Trust me I’ve been there. I’ve tricked myself into thinking that I could go back to snacking on chips for lunch so long as I ate fruit in the morning and vegetables for dinner, and still be able to keep the 10 pounds that I lost off. I was so wrong.
Within the first week of doing so, I gained nearly 3 pounds back! This was because I had told myself that I had control over my old habits, which I didn’t. The funny thing is that achieving my fitness goals was never a control issue to begin with. It was always about what my body needed in order to perform at its best, and sadly that did not include chips.
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How to fix it
This requires you to understand what your lifestyle changes are, and to know whether or not they are effective for you.
As I mentioned above, one of my lifestyle changes included me changing my eating habits, by eating more fruits and vegetables and less junk food. It’s what works best for my body to be able to perform at its best. This is going to look different for you and it’s important for you to understand what those specific changes are that are helping you.
I like to keep track of this by re-visiting my fitness goals that I created at the beginning of my journey. Not only are my lifestyle changes listed on that paper, but I am also able to see exactly where I have seen improvements in my health, and what specifically has helped me get there.
This is also a time when I will re-visit any specific workouts that I kept as part of my regular routine. Ultimately, the conclusion for me is that the combination of my lifestyle changes and workouts are what is most effective for me in achieving my fitness goals.
This may be something that you may want to do. It’s a great way to continue to hold yourself accountable, as well as maintain the results that you have achieved. The whole point of a fitness journey is to improve a little bit more each and every day. Keep moving forward, no matter how many steps backwards you may take. It’s the only way to grow!
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Conclusion
Starting a fitness journey can be intimidating but it doesn’t have to be.
Don’t put so much stress and pressure on yourself to succeed! Results are going to happen fast in the beginning, and then they will begin to slow down. This doesn’t necessarily mean that what you are doing is no longer working. It just means that your body may have gotten used to the new changes, and may be ready for something new. In other words, your body is resting for now, but will produce more desired results soon. So, stay strong and keep moving forward!
What are you currently doing for your fitness journey?
-Xo
Kimora
