How to make a start or get better fitness results with 8 simple steps.
- Move as much as possible daily. Get a fitness tracker, fit bit or something similar and walk 10000-12000 steps a day, simple to do but you know you are at least not being sedentary. I actually got one of my longest standing clients to get one of these fitbits the other day its been a brilliant tool for her too. Garmin also do a range of watches and monitors too.
- Practice what you want to go get better at. If you want to get stronger you will need to do resistance training. If you want to lose body fat, this will help with this too! So, I suggest and have found that putting resistance against your body 3 days a week. It doesn’t necessarily need to be in a gym, it can be at home. In fact we have found this to be particularly effective for those who work shift patterns and cant make our live sessions. So start with 30 minutes of 10 reps of each exercise. Push Ups, Squats, Plank Reaches, Hip Ups and complete 3 times a week. Your body needs a progressive overload so add 4 reps to each of these exercises each week and you will get stronger also.
Videos to help with this:
- Only eat food you plan. If you are struggling to get going on a better nutritional intake goal…..I would get you to write a list of foods you will stock in the house firstly. Trouble is……Most people fail because they emotionally eat. They feel bad about something and they eat, or they have decision fatigue after a long day and can’t think of what to eat so they resort to something that makes them feel good in the moment. Instant gratification unfortunately shows its ugly head here! If you make a plan to only allow yourself to eat food you have planned 24 hours in advance in then it will take you to stop from emotional eating ever again. I personally would say track this in a food-tracking app and have it filled out 24 hours in advance, easy app to use is myfitnesspal. We have been helping clients, see what they actually eat and drink by using this app. It works.
- Track your progress, measurements weekly, and photos and body weight every 2 weeks. I apply 3 different ways to measure (if you can’t get someone to do your body fat do the weighing option) because your weight isn’t always going to go down, but on those weeks your measurements might go down, or your photos may visibly change. Don’t get hyper critical on one mode of measurement, use all 3 at the same time once a week and be happy with the small changes each week. Remember 5cm lost in a week off your body consistently over 10 weeks is 50cm. Small changes really do get the large results as we saw yesterday with many clients coming in after their 6 week kickstart. One of them, a gentleman that we had in yesterday, I am encouraging to measure against how he was 6 weeks ago with a timed bike ride that he did before joining me. So, I guess….just pick a few different modes of measurement and use them all.
- Moving on from point 3, tracking your food and keep yourself on a consistent basis and looking at how much food you eat (whether it be how many calories you are eating on a weekly basis or just the food volume). Firstly, let me have you consider if the foods, swam, ran grew or flew. Then I would start looking at taking pictures of the plates. Just so you can compare portion sizes if things aren’t moving in the right direction, or if they are a little steadier than you would have hoped. If you are tracking this on a daily basis and your measurements don’t change over the week from the last week to this week and you were compliant with your program then decrease the food volume by 50 calories per day, or 1 fist of carbs daily (however you are tracking your food).
- Set rules for yourself. “Will power and won’t power”. Will power is not eating anything unless you have planned 24 hours in advance like we talked about earlier, where as ‘wont power’ is things you will be giving up until you have achieved your goal that you know that sway your judgment. e.g. You know if you have a piece of chocolate you always eat the slab. So your wont power is I wont eat chocolate for the next 28 days. This abstain method works really well for some, not so well for others BUT it’s a tool nonetheless.
- Set goals and be accountable to someone, have a friend, a coach, someone that you measure yourself with, being accountable to someone else will help you stay on track, because it’s easy to lie to yourself, but when you have to justify that to someone else it doesn’t wash as easy. I like to do this with those people whom I would hate to let down, in fact I hate letting anyone down, so get it out there. Start telling people what you intend to do.
- Lastly have alternates in place. If ______ then I will ______
For example, if I don’t feel like training, then I will do the first 5 minutes and see how I feel. If you do this then I bet you will keep going. Or if I feel like a cheat off my nutrition plan then I will have a cup of herbal tea instead and go for a walk. Having the set plan of If I _____, then I will _____ will fix your emotional quick fixes. It’s about breaking the default pattern of events.
Follow these easy steps and enjoy the process.
Your health and fitness is like bamboo…..you sometimes need to commit a large amount of energy and then all of a sudden BOOM…… you achieve your goal!
Speak soon
Matt
p.s. Our next MENS ONLY programme is starting MONDAY 9th. To apply for this the men can head to http://www.mattluxtonhealthandfitness.com/mansformation
