Fitness News

FITNESS: THIS TIME NEXT YEAR, RODNEY…

Have you joined the masses and decided this is the year to… [insert goal here]? That’s great. I strongly encourage goal setting, but it needs to come with action-taking too. It also needs to be achievable (unrealistic goals are fantastic too, it’s truly amazing what’s possible if you put your mind to it, as long as you break them down into smaller steps of interim goals and what actions are needed to reach each of those stages).

Whilst it’s traditional to review and rewrite your goals in the New Year, I do think you should do it more often than that. Review them constantly - weekly, daily even. And if your goals change or you think of a new one, don’t wait until the new year to start it!

BUT… If you are writing your goals for 2022 now, get to it.

As far as health and fitness go, my main advice is this: Set action goals as oppose to end result goals. By this, I mean don’t chase a number on the scale or a weight on the barbell etc. You need to know what you need to do to reach those results.

Decide what you want the end result to be (fat loss, muscle gain, get off the meds, be able to run a marathon etc etc) and then write down what you need to do to achieve that end result. Those are your goals – to complete those actions consistently until you reach the result. Saying your goal is to lose 2 stone is meaningless.

Saying your goal is to eat well and exercise daily until you’ve lost 2 stone (and beyond) is meaningful, and actionable.

Otherwise you’ll be jumping on the scale every day getting disappointed and wondering why things aren’t working. Wishful thinking and saying you’re going to lose weight aren’t enough.

It’s also very hard to determine just how long something like weight loss can take, so reaching a certain date and leaving your success or failure down to a number on the scale is playing with fire. If you can honestly say you’ve done everything you were supposed to do, then you’ve succeeded, whether or not you’ve blasted through your 2 stone target, or just lost 1 stone so far. I’d also recommend taking the long approach – yes, things can happen quickly when you do it right, but have realistic expectations and don’t try to rush it.

Too many people start January all guns blazing only to bite off more than they can chew and disappear by February, never to be seen again… until next January.

Don’t be that person. If anything, do the opposite – start exercising just twice a week for half an hour, and each week/month aim to increase that.

Add 5 minutes to each workout every week for the first month… Add a 3rd workout in month 2… Add a 4th workout in month 3… Increase the intensity a bit each week after that… Then focus on being consistent and maintaining that routine.

Weight loss, strength gain, improving health aren’t rocket science. Just make a plan and stick to it.

Starving yourself, and killing yourself in the gym for a month in January are the best ways to ensure you’re right back where you started by next January.

Ease into it, with the view that you have all year to work at it, until you review and celebrate your results and re-write your goals next year. As always, I’m here if you need help – just visit my website or find me on social media to get in touch :)

Happy New Year! Let’s make it a good one!

Mark