5 tips for a productive health & fitness journey

After years of building systems and methods to get our clients from A to B relative to their goals. These 5 categories we're going to delve into are what we've found to be the most beneficial and useful principles to help you on your journey, but also help you maintain that level of upkeep. Get a notepad and pen and make notes, relative to your thoughts as you work through this. 

 

This is quite a vast subject when it comes to deciding what it is you actually want. When I plan 'what' I want. I find visualising the 'perfect' outcome is what gets my juices flowing. Try this! 

 

What do you see yourself looking like in 12 months? Physically, hair style, body shape, body size, leanness, muscle tissue 

 

What do you feel like when you see yourself in 12 months time? Are you proud, happy, confident, empowered, content, 

 

What habits do you have 12 months from now? High steps, regular training schedule, do you track your food? Are you weighing food? Do you eat out with friends and family? Do you journal, do you have a coach? Do you meditate and read? 

 

What do others think about you when they see you? What do they see to one another? How great do they look, they look so happy! I'm jealous of what they've achieved, I wish I could do that. I'm so inspired by them. Look at how small they've got. 

 

Once you start painting a picture of the outcome, as if you already have it, it becomes much easier to think about getting started and inspired. 

 

COLLECT DATA: 

'You can't manage what you don't measure' 

 

The perfect quote for anyone wanting to make 'progress'. How do you expect to make any progress (i.e. manage), if you're not measuring anything. I have regular conversations with potential new clients regarding how they are fed up and in a vicious cycle of stop start, stop start. Purely because they haven't looked at these first 2 elements. They didn't get clear on the goal and they set off without collecting anything valuable to them. 

 

Think about it logically and relative to your goals. A fat loss goal would rely a lot on picture evidence, body statistics such as scale weight, circumference measurements. These are valuable landmarks to help you benchmark your initial start point, and relative review/check points. 

 

These are just a few of the other bits of data you can start to collect. Keep a record on a document on your laptop, note on your phone or hand written journal. 

 

 

These are just a few of the markers we collect when coaching with our clients whether they are online or 1:1. All relative to their goals. 

 

I recommend keeping a tab on these each day, week & month. That way you can see whether you need to make any day to day adjustments to keep you in check for the week, the month and the year overall based on your goals. 

 

We've all been here, we want the result there and then. Think of it like this, you go to decorate your living room and want it done in 2 days. You miss all of the important tasks of the prep work before hand to give you that A star finish, because you had a deadline of 2 days. You rush it through, forget this, forget that, put paint on top of the wall paper, don't sand the wood, don't wash the walls, don't cover your furniture and make a proper pigs ear of it all. But it's worth it because it's done in 2 days right? 

 

You're a few days in and spot some issues and snags, you see some chipping on the wood work or the lines on the cutting in, you realise you may even need a second coat and the finish of the wall is off because they weren't cleaned properly, your friend comes round and doesn't even compliment because they think it looks dogger. 

 

But it's all worth it because it was done in 2 days, like you said. 

 

But deep down, you're sat there, heart of hearts thinking, 's*** I should have taken longer, or even hired a professional' 

 

Allow for more time, allow for prep work, allow for the boring stuff to take place (the foundational fundamentals). In order to progress on top of that. You won't need to re-decorate for years until you decide you fancy a change. It takes longer, costs more, but 100% guarantee a better result and finish. 

 

CONSISTENCY: 

I'll let you in on a little secret. I find the only way you can stay consistent is with the 4 other categories at play. Not 2 or 3, 1 without the other. All 4. 

 

You will have a day or 2 'off plan' or forgetting why you started, it will seem like the end of the world and you'll be guilt stricken, you'll decide to start next week instead of the day after because you've 'f***** it'. Wrong. 

 

That's exactly why some of you are reading this now, because you've failed to be consistent prior to reading this. Am I right? 

 

Give this a go if that's all you'll do, stay consistent to your goal. 

 

ENJOYMENT: 

Very basic and ultimately the easiest to achieve. The beauty of this one? You're most in control of it. You decide what you do & don't enjoy, relative to exercise and food intake. 

 

Don't fancy early morning training sessions? Go at a different time. 

Don't like a certain veggie? Try something different. 

Something worked in week 1 that you loved, that you hate now in week 12? Change it up. 

 

You're in control of this variable. Make use of that power.