Resolutions, again! Yes my friends, I am still on
resolutions and why you shouldn’t make them in the New Year. However in the off
chance that you still believe in and make New Year resolutions, I have decided
to give you a helping hand. Today’s topic is all about how you can make
resolutions and stick to them! (Note resolutions, not New Year resolutions!)
Research has shown that most new year resolutions fail
within the first 3 months of them being declared, like I said last week, the
first culprit is usually the fact that these resolutions are usually emotional
and externally motived, with little thought as to how to execute them.
Today I am going to give you my take on how you can get your
resolutions to stick way beyond Easter. I guarantee that if you can follow this
advice you will see major gains in your health and fitness journey and your
resolution will become your life!
The Christmas and New Year holidays are a time of joy; we
hang out with family and friends, eat and drink. Unfortunately the eating and
drinking is often taken to excess. So with the New Year comes new weight gain
and eater’s remorse! In the moment of remorse we usually make resolutions that
we have all intent of keeping, initially. “I resolve to lose weight” and “I
resolve to work out regularly” are very popular. Then we suddenly find
ourselves in a slump unable to maintain motivation or progress and then we quit
out of frustration. This does not mean
you are a failure or that you lack willpower, usually it means you are being
overambitious with your goal, and then you lose steam when success can’t be
achieved overnight. It’s time to change that.
The fix is simple, here are some examples of how you can set
specific targets to lose fat, to gain muscle, eat right or get fit starting
now!
1. New Year resolution : “ I will lose body
fat”
Change
this to:
New
resolution: “I will do 30 mins of cardio 4 days a week”
To lose weight, you need a number of daily
decisions and commitments, it’s not just a case of changing one thing, and you
need a multi-faceted approach.
·
Weight training to build more muscle, which not
only burns more calories and raises you metabolism for much longer.
·
Dietary change, substituting clean foods that
are full of nutrients for processed foods high in empty calories like sugar
etc.
·
Recovery time, which is essential for muscle
growth and ensuring you are physically at your best every time you enter the
gym.
With that in mind, your weight loss
goal should be broken down into smaller pieces, one piece should build on the
next and they should all be easy to track and accomplish.
Hence you should set a goal for the
number of minutes of cardio you want to perform or the distance you want to
cover, make it conservative at first so that you can meet your target, and then
gradually try to exceed it. Remember, if it doesn’t challenge you, it won’t
change you. For example, you could do 30 mins of cardio at 5.30am four days per
week if you are trying to forge the habit or running one mile in less than 10
minutes, 5 days a week.
2. New Year Resolution: “ I resolve to eat
healthy”
Change
this to:
New
Resolution: “ I resolve to eat 300 to 500 fewer calories than I presently
consume”
Wanting to eat healthy is so vague, that
it’s hard to quantify, how exactly do you gauge progress? Rather than
attempting to eat healthy, resolve to completely cut out soft drinks, sugary
baked foods and processed foods. Cutting out a few hundred calories here or
there is key to achieving your goals. Along the way, you must continually track
your weight loss. Weigh yourself at the same time every other day and adjust
your food intake and activity levels according to how well or not you are
progressing. Also plan your meals as much as possible so that you can track
calorie intake better.
3. New Year Resolution: “I resolve to get big and strong even though
I am neither right now”
Change
this to:
New
Resolution: “ I will learn to lift weights properly, 3 times a week for 3
months straight”
An advanced lifter may have a specific
goal, i.e to increase his strength by 10% on a given exercise. If you are a
beginner however, there are a few steps you need to learn before setting such
specific strength goals. One step is to learn and practice over and over again
proper technique. Below are the most important ones:
·
Proper squat technique
·
Horizontal push and pull technique( bench press
and press up)
·
Vertical push and pull technique(military press,
pull ups and pull downs)
If you are a beginner, your muscles
aren’t yet conditioned to move big weights safely, so your muscles will have to
adapt. As a beginner, you can build strength gradually using relatively light
loads at first for up to 8 to 12 reps, this helps to build muscles and proper
form at the same time.
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