Even the most committed of us face hurdles along the way when we’re working towards a goal. It’s how we deal with them that determines whether we stay on track and smash our fitness goals, or whether we trip and fall.
Because we don’t want you falling – that could hurt – we’ve identified the top five fitness goal saboteurs and prepared some strategies to combat them.
1. Social pressure leading you astray
You’ve been triumphing in your fitness sessions and sticking to your meal plan with diligence when you’re suddenly faced with a social event at the weekend. Whether it’s a friend’s birthday, a family catch up or an anniversary dinner, chances are there’ll be more on offer than cucumber slices and herbal tea. Not to mention how a late night throws out your exercise plans.
We don’t want your joyful times with loved ones to be ruined by anxiety, just like we don’t want party snacks to de-rail your great progress. Explain to your host, friend or family member that you won’t be having a big night, but you still want to be there. They’ll understand, and they’ll appreciate you making the effort to be with them. If you’re going to a restaurant, try and look up the menu beforehand to see what healthy choices you can make. Plus, if you do a workout before you go and set yourself a sensible ‘curfew,’ your training schedule won’t be thrown out.
If you do slip up, don’t be too hard on yourself. Just pick yourself up and keep moving forward.
2. Not being prepared for your workout
How many times have you hit snooze in the morning instead of getting up to exercise? Or maybe you keep leaving your sneakers at work and can’t hit the gym later. Whatever the reason for missing a training session, you can take steps to be more prepared.
If you’re too tired in the mornings to get up for a workout, try going to bed an hour earlier the night before. Make sure your workout clothes are laid out ready just to put on in the morning. If you’re heading to the park to exercise after work, make sure you’ve got all your gear packed so you can just go and get it done.
3. Not treating your workout as a priority
Sometimes plans can change because of something out of your control. Your boss might put a meeting in your diary at lunchtime and you can’t get to the gym, or your car might break down and you’re stranded at the shops. These things happen.
This is where you make the decision not to give up, but to treat your workout – and your health and fitness goals – as a priority and take action.
It might mean sacrificing that nightly episode you were going to watch on Netflix and fitting in an evening workout instead or taking a rain check on that coffee date you’d penciled in this afternoon so you can squeeze in a HIIT session instead. These aren’t easy choices to make, but when you consider your priorities, do you really want fitness to come last?
4. Weighing yourself 10 times a day
We’re going to ask you really nicely to step away from the scales. On an intensive health and fitness journey like this, relying on the scales to judge your progress will probably lead to disaster. If the number hasn’t gone down as much as you expected, you’re going to feel disheartened.
Your weight can be so dependent on many factors. Scales are unreliable and distracting, especially if you’re hopping on them 10 times a day. Our bodies are different weights at different times of day, based on many different factors, including when we ate and what our stress levels are.
A more reliable way of judging your progress is to measure yourself. Measure your chest, waist, hips, thighs and biceps. You can also take photos of yourself to see how your body changes throughout the program.
Another important way of judging your success? How you’re feeling about your fitness. You should notice changes in your exercise ability, so celebrate how well you’re smashing these training sessions. Don’t let numbers on a scale stop you, especially this early in the journey.
5. Negative talk
Yes, you ate a square of chocolate. But that doesn’t mean you’ve failed and it definitely doesn’t mean you ‘might as well finish the whole bar now.’ If you missed Wednesday’s workout, that doesn’t mean you’ve slipped up and should write off the rest of the week.
Negative talk brings negative action and that never ends well, especially when you have a health and fitness goal to strive towards.
A few tips if you’re spiraling into negativity:
- Think about why you’re doing this. Reaffirm your end goal and remember that putting yourself down won’t get you there.
- Go for a walk or have a workout. Exercise is a great stress relief and the endorphins will flip your mood.
- Remind yourself that one slip up isn’t the end of the world – you enjoyed that square of chocolate, now it’s time to move on. You can still do this.
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