Face it. We’re already into February and it seems like those fitness goals you made just a month ago are getting harder to reach, and your resolve seems to be weakening. If what you do have is:
- the desire to reach your goals
- The quality home gym equipment to maximize your efforts
…you have everything you need to stay on track! First of all, don’t beat yourself up and surrender. Take a breath and consider these five simple and completely do-able ways to get you re-focused and back on track with your fitness goals.
1. Reassess your Fitness Resolutions
If you’re like most people, you may have bitten off more than you could chew when you made your goals a month ago. Perhaps resolving to compete in an Iron Man Marathon by June wasn’t the most realistic goal. The best thing to do is sit down, look at your fitness resolution goals and figure out the three most important reasons why you want to become more fit. Then, you can get a better handle on revising your goals and creating a realistic plan to achieve them.
2. Make It A Priority: Put it on your Calendar
When you have quality home fitness equipment available in the privacy of your home, our workout schedule is up to you! It’s one thing to resolve to work out five days a week, but just like anything else in your busy life that’s important, it needs to be scheduled and made a priority. (And another helpful tip: DON’T schedule your workout at 5 am if you’ve never been a morning person!)
Pay attention to your body’s rhythms and energy levels throughout the day, and plan your workout when you are most inclined to do it. While this can be challenging, considering all your other responsibilities, it can be done with a little scheduling and getting yourself accustomed to the addition to your routine.
3. Have an Accountability Partner
If your best bud has also committed to losing a few inches or pounds, or just wants to improve his or her overall health, get together and create an accountability plan. Write down your weekly plan and your goals and measure them. Then, at the end of each week, you can share your progress. And, of course, you can be each other’s daily reminders and cheering section.
If you don’t have someone for an accountability partner, there are also a ton of fitness and nutritional apps that help you make good decisions, track your progress, and cheer you on. Apps like Noom, Commit and My Fitness Pal give you a whole range of support, from tracking the number of calories burned to helping you make good food choices when you’re forced to eat at a less than healthy restaurant.
4. Remind Yourself Why You’re Doing it.
The beauty of making a commitment to improve your fitness is that there are really no wrong reasons for doing it. Unrealistic sometimes, perhaps. Wrong, no.
Some of us may just want to look better in our jeans or swimsuits while others may want to improve their stamina, or compete in a sporting event they never thought they’d be able to. If you have a history in your family of diabetes, heart disease, or cancer, the reasons are already there. And if you have a family, they are the best reasons of all to get healthier and stay that way. After all, you want to be there for as long as possible with your family and you also want to be a role model for them.
5. Give Yourself a Pat on the Back!
You know the saying about all work and no play? Well, that holds true for your fitness routine. You’re working hard and doing your best. And, let’s face it – if you’ve been sedentary until now, everything you’re doing is 100 percent more than you were doing before, right? So, give yourself a pat on the back in the form of a treat or reward. Maybe, it’s a Friday afternoon massage to get you in a great frame of mind for the weekend. Or, take yourself out on the slopes or a cross-country trail to enjoy nature. While you’re out there, you’ll notice how your workouts are already improving your enjoyment of activities you weren’t as good at before.
Finally, make sure to be kind to yourself, regularly reassess your goals, and remember that you’re giving yourself the gift of health. Come on in and visit our fitness equipment store locations in Saratoga Springs and Albany New York,or contact us online. We are the regions in-home fitness equipment experts!