More people want to get and stay fit, especially considering the numerous benefits. Healthline lists quite a few benefits of exercising, including reducing the risk of heart disease and maintaining a healthy brain. However, despite these benefits, most people can’t seem to stick with a fitness routine for more than a few days.
Anyone who has tried dieting and exercise knows committing is more of a mental thing than a physical one. Fortunately, staying motivated with your fitness journey is challenging but achievable with these four tips for staying consistent. Struggling with Fitness? 4 Tips for Staying Consistent!
1. Keep Workouts Sustainable
Many people starting with their fitness journeys are likely to hit the ground running by scheduling hour-long workout sessions, trying out rigid dietary plans, and pressuring themselves to achieve impossible goals. This is unsustainable and will only leave you with more reasons to stay inconsistent.
As we’ve discussed in one of our previous articles: Make Your Workout Routine Sustainable, we discuss that it’s by setting realistic, healthy goals that you’ll be able to keep on track. Working out while considering your body’s daily limits can help you avoid burnout and lets your body grow accustomed to the rhythm of a regular workout routine.
2. Set Goals with a Personalized Plan
Many may think that setting ambitious goals and thinking big is the reason for failure. Often, however, one is set up for failure because these goals are made without a plan of action.
It’s easy to feel discouraged and give up when we don’t see results or progress quickly. Hence, setting short-term milestones to reach long-term goals can be helpful, especially when these goals are set with the guidance of professionals. Industry leader WeightWatchers notes how a weight loss plan should include an initial consultation with a registered dietitian, as well as nutrition and behavioral scientists, to best determine your body’s unique condition and needs.
This can help you overcome common weight loss hurdles like stress eating to late-night snacking by empowering you to choose healthy, personalized, delicious, and accessible foods. This makes healthy choices far easier and more rewarding, sooner making fitness feel like second nature.
3. Make it a Habit
Creating a habit loop with your fitness journey is the goal. To help, licensed professional counsellor Taish Malone suggests identifying a reward before consistently practicing behavior that will result in that incentive.
For example, if the thought of going for a run fills you with dread, identify a reward or location that you can incorporate into the end of the run like a favourite park or healthy smoothie place.
Otherwise, if you’re working at home, you can reward yourself with an episode of your favourite show after the workout. These can be all the motivation you need to make fitness a regular part of your everyday life.
4. Keep Track of Your Progress
Working out without seeing any tangible results might make you lose motivation. A trick to keep yourself on track is to build your workouts to a schedule and track your progress.
While you can manually tally your reps and laps run in a day, the Telegraph explains that using tech tools like a fitness tracker can conveniently and accurately measure every fitness statistic in your body. This includes your blood oxygen levels or sleep patterns, alongside the prescribed recovery time recommended in training plans. This should help you motivate yourself, and could also help you track how your plans could change according to your progress.
Staying consistent with staying fit is not an easy job. But re-framing the way we think about it through these tips can give you an idea of how to encourage yourself to power through your fitness journey. So why not give fitness a try? You’ll be amazed at how much better life can be when you’ve got consistency on your side.
Do you struggle with keeping consistent with your fitness? Let us know in the comments below and on Facebook, Twitter & Instagram!
