HOW TO GET STARTED ON YOUR FITNESS JOURNEY
Choose your 'Why'- If you want to get motivated to make a change, its important to start by knowing why you want it. Do you want to be fitter so that you can keep up with your kids? Stronger so you can feel a little safer or more confident? Your ‘why’ is what will get you up out of bed in the morning when its cold and its dark when you’d rather stay comfortable.
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Figure out what forms of exercise you enjoy- when meeting with new clients I make a point to find out what exercises they dislike/hate and then we don’t do them. If you make yourself do exercises that you hate, you end up falling into the trap of viewing exercise as a chore and dreading your workouts. Finding a form of exercise that you enjoy is key to long term sustainability. If you’re not sure what types of exercise you enjoy, maybe try a new class or sport, or working out with a friend.
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Make it a priority- scheduling and planning your workouts to be at a similar time each week will help you to make exercise a habit, something you just do, rather than deciding on whether you’ll exercise today and what you might do when you get to the gym.
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Make it convenient for you- assess your barriers and then plan around them. You’re not sure what to do in the gym? Work with a trainer or a coach who will give you a plan to follow. You don’t want to try a new class alone? Ask a friend to go with you. It takes you too long to get ready in the morning? Prepare your gym bag and outfit the night before.
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Set sustainable and specific goals that can be measured and tracked- e.g. ‘I want to be able to squat my bodyweight by [date]’. It’s important to have an end point and to be able to know that you’re progressing towards your goals to keep yourself motivated. This also means that if you’re not heading towards your goals, you know that it is time to make a change.
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Allow margin for error- expecting to be perfect puts unnecessary stress on you and leaves you feeling like you messed up when you can’t adhere 100%.