Are You Sabotaging Your Own Fitness Resolutions?
Are you finding it harder to stick to your fitness goals? You set your fitness resolutions but now, weeks into the new year, it’s getting harder and harder to get yourself into the gym. What happened to the motivation?
It turns out that relying on motivation can get you in trouble. Because it’s not about motivation, it’s about the discipline. Discipline is what will carry you through the year, while waiting for motivation can undermine your goals.
Statistics show that almost half of the people who set fitness-related resolutions during the holidays, abandon them by February. Did you know that you can be sabotaging your own fitness resolutions?
Unrealistic Goals are something many grapple with. Vague goals are not your friends, if you want results, you have to have clear parameters, concrete milestones and specific, measurable and achievable resolutions. Don’t overwhelm yourself, it’s best to start slower and progressively increase the intensity instead of quickly burning out. When you are excited, you set big goals but when you don’t reach those goals, you get mad at yourself for not making it happen and quit. It’s better to go slow and steady until you are ready to tweak.
Overtraining is a huge way you can self-sabotage your fitness and weight loss success. You need a schedule that alternates high-intensity workouts in the gym with lighter exercises and movement on your off days. Your body needs rest to rebuild those muscles you’re working so hard to develop. Stretching helps to keep you flexible, and sufficient down time facilitates repair possibly preventing injuries in the future.
Not getting enough sleep can affect nearly every area of your life. That includes your time in the gym. If you didn’t get enough sleep the night before and you feel exhausted, scheduling an off day may be a wise choice. Not only does it have the potential to make you even more tired, pushing you to systemic exhaustion, your body will struggle to repair your muscles, which makes working out pointless.
If you don’t get around eight hours of sleep regularly, it’s time to rethink your bedtime routine. If you are chronically sleep deprived, no amount of exercise is going to get the job done.
Eating Right is paramount to your fitness success. Eating sweets and greasy foods can leave you feeling sluggish, which can make exercising difficult, but they are also full of calories, which means you’ll likely eat way more than you should.
However, you can experience just as many problems if you swing too far the other way. If you are restricting calories, and you’re restricting them a little too severely, you aren’t going to have the energy to work out!
Adjust your diet so you eat more of the right things while cutting out the wrong things—no counting calories needed.
Drinking alcohol if you have fitness goals isn’t a good idea either. Even if you drink casually, you’re ingesting empty calories, which leads to fat gain. Excessive alcohol consumption also cuts into your ability to gain muscle. Instead, you should treat alcohol like you do other desserts, and drink sparingly. Besides, it is doubtful you’ll have a great workout when hungover!
At the end of the day, success, or a lack of success, all comes down to the most powerful tool you have: your MIND – your mindset, habits, and psychology. You have to decide what you want, commit to it, and maintain focus and determination in order to succeed. If it is weight loss you desire, no special diet will fully help you deal with the ‘how or why’ you gained weight in the first place. It won’t solve why you couldn’t stop eating, felt endless cravings, and couldn’t put your health and goals first over eating the wrong food. No ‘miracle diet’ can fix that emotional, stress, or anxiety induced connection you have to eat certain foods, and it certainly can’t reverse compulsive and habitual eating. If you are trying to gain muscle, no workout routine can fix the voice in your head that tells you that you are working out too much or too little. It’s the same voice that constantly tells you to put off your goals for another day. Committing to succeed is a choice that only belongs to you. Believing in yourself and staying disciplined is what will help you achieve your goals.
