Have you ever looked back at your holiday photos and thought Ughhhh!
I met with Charlie recently, who’d been away on holiday, and after seeing the post holiday photos was mortified about how much weight had snuck on – seemingly overnight.
On reflection she realised that actually, it had been over the last couple of years where the weight had been creeping up.
But the holiday was just the tipping point.
Charlie used to be pretty active. But after having kids and taking on more responsibility at work she’d always put herself at the bottom of the pile.
Aside from the ‘holiday photos from hell’ (as she described them) she felt tired pretty much all the time.
She hated that she couldn’t wear any of her favourite clothes. And didn’t feel like going out and socializing (something she used to love doing) because she just didn’t feel good about herself.
She explained that if she didn’t do something about it now it was only going to get harder, and she’d end up a ‘fat, depressed, recluse’ (her words).
I asked what she’d tried in the past and Charlie went on to list a number of diets, gym memberships, exercise classes and self guided activities like running.
But the pattern was the same.
She’d get motivated. Start something new then – for one reason or another – would give up.
Either she wasn’t seeing results, or felt more miserable restricted on the diet than she’d felt being overweight.
Staying motivated to exercise is really hard
The appeal of slouching on the sofa with a glass of wine at the end of a hard day just felt more appealing to Charlie than doing some exercise.
Can’t argue with that.
At the same time she felt stuck in a body she wasn’t happy with. Didn’t have enough energy to enjoy life and didn’t know what to do to break the cycle of work, eat, sleep, repeat.
She wanted better for herself. But didn’t know where to turn.
Charlie’s not alone in her struggles. In fact hundreds of men and women that I know personally have started off in the exact same position as Charlie and gone on to successfully transform their habits, health, fitness and their body.
So, I want to share with you the 3 cornerstones that allowed them to stop dithering, and actually make a significant change in their life.
To cut the half-efforts and failed attempts and finally take control of their health and fitness.
Over the years we’ve narrowed it down to 3 key areas that’ll help you go from struggling to achieve better health and fitness to having more energy, more confidence and feeling great about your body.
Most people have a vague idea that they’d like to ‘lose weight’ or tone up. But that’s not very clear. I guess the question you need to answer is this;
Why?
You need to identify what will be different. What will you notice? How will you feel?
Once you’ve got a clear picture of what’s going to be better in your life by losing weight then you’ve uncovered a motivating force that’ll be way more compelling that ‘just’ losing weight.
That’s going to be what ignites the fire getting you motivated to start.
You need a set of clear habits and behaviours that – when executed consistently will you closer to your goal.
For example; doing one or two 30-minute high intensity strength training sessions per week would be a great starting point for a plan.
You can always build on this over time.
But as a general rule the best plan is the one you can do consistently – even on your busiest, most stressful day.
So, be strategic about this. Start small, get some success and build from there. While having a plan is a great, there is one thing that will make your plan more successful;
Have some skin in the game
You can increase your chances of success by making a commitment to your goals and investing in achieving them.
In our experience the highest returning investment is NOT in new gym kit, a pair of trainers or even a gym membership.
These just aren’t big enough commitments.
There’s no pain associated with paying for a cheap gym membership and not going.
If you invest little-to-nothing you can expect little-to-no return.
The best investment you can make (that’ll actually help you achieve your goals) is in getting help from an expert with a track record of helping people just like you achieve their health and fitness goals.
When it comes to health and fitness, the more you invest the higher the return.
The reality is that no matter how motivated we are right now, at some point that motivation is going to drop.
That’s when accountability comes into play.
It helps us do the things we want to do, know we should do, but ultimately let slide if there’s no-one to be accountable to.
We’ve found the simple act of having appointments at our personal training studio has got clients (many of whom had never managed to stick to exercise) complete a year or more of consistent weekly training.
As humans we don’t mind letting ourselves down
Sure, letting ourselves down doesn’t feel good. But we’ll get over it.
Having someone else onboard is another matter. For some reason we’re less likely to let someone else down.
It’s normal to feel like we ‘should’ be able to lose weight and stay in shape by ourselves.
But the reality is that in today’s world we’re so busy juggling all our other responsibilities and looking out for other people’s interests that unless we’re accountable to someone else we’re just not going to look after ourselves.
So I want to recommend taking advantage of accountability. Because it’s one of the biggest success factors you can have going for you.
After a holiday is a great time to focus on getting your health and fitness on track.
But you’ve got to go about it the right way to avoid the residual holiday weight gain clocking up over the years.
The best approach we’ve found is to have a clear goal, a plan of attack and some accountability to help you stick to it.
Want some help getting your health and fitness on track?
If you’d like some help planning out how to get your exercise and nutrition back on track after the holidays I’d love to help. Request a Complimentary Exercise & Nutrition Strategy Session (Worth £75) and let’s map out a personalised plan for you to achieve your health and fitness goals
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