How To Avoiding Falling Off Your Fitness Journey

Fitness related goals are at the top of the list when it comes to popular New Year’s resolutions. Surprisingly, less than 10% of people who set fitness related resolutions actually commit and stick to a fitness routine long term. While going “All In” seems like a great way to get started on something, it is often what gets in people’s way when it comes to fitness, wanting to do too much at once leads to burn out or injury. This is only one of the many reasons why over 90% of people fall off their fitness journey, other reasons include; lack of accountability, slow progress, no set habits, poor planning, and the “I have no time” excuse. Here are some helpful tips to help you start and stay committed to your fitness journey this new year and for the years beyond.

#1 Make A Plan

“How you get started determines how you finish”, I’m not sure where I first heard this statement but it could not be any more accurate when it comes to starting a fitness journey. Making a plan when it comes to starting YOUR fitness journey is going to look different for each individual person and it is something that is meant to change as life changes and as goals change, but there are a few things to consider when getting started. One of the first things to think about prior to getting started is where are you going to be training. You want to make sure that the facility you will be training at has any amenities you will need prior to signing up; child care, showers, lockers, 24/7 access, ect. Fancy equipment is NOT needed, as long as they have the basics; dumbbells, barbells and weights, bands, and maybe a little bit of cardio equipment, you will have everything you need to get started and to be able to progress your workouts. If training from home is something you are possibly interested in because of convenience, keep in mind you do NOT need a bunch of equipment to get started or to see results. You can get VERY far in your fitness journey by slowly adding equipment to your home gym little bits at a time! The next thing to consider when coming up with a plan for your fitness journey is when you will be training. Will you be training before or after work, on off days, on weekends? Consider what your schedule looks like in the coming weeks or months, consider your kids schedules as well. This part of your plan will change more frequently than everything else and that is okay, you just want to make sure these are things you have thought about ahead of time and are able to work your fitness goals around so you don’t fall off when your schedule gets hectic. The last part of coming up with your plan will be frequency, how many days a week you can routinely make it to your workouts. I recommend starting off slow when it comes to training frequency, try to choose a number of days a week that is sustainable LONG TERM. I see A LOT of online clients come to me and initially want to start with upwards of 4-5 days a week, and this is a great mindset to be in, but I often see that it is not sustainable schedule wise for many individuals so when you do miss the days you have planned it can be disheartening and then there also is not enough time for the body to properly recover when first starting out if you are training too much and this leads to burnout and injury. I like to start clients out with 1-2 days a week on a full body program, this will ensure that every body part is being worked 1-2 times per week, it is always easy to reevaluate your plan and add more days in the future. Coming up with a plan BEFORE getting started will determine how successful you are on your fitness journey, so remember to consider where, when, and how frequently you will be training.

#2 Hold Yourself Accountable

Finding ways to hold yourself accountable or tracking progress in some way is another way to keep you from falling off your fitness journey this year. Having a coach or a workout partner are two obvious ways to be held accountable but there are also things you can do on your own. Once you have decided on what days of the week and how frequently you will be training, one way to hold yourself accountable is to track the days you are in the gym each week, you can do this by making a post on social media, you can add a checkmark to your physical calendar or to your calendar on your phone, or something I like to do is add in my workout days to my phone calendar ahead of time and mark as completed when I get it done. Recording reps, sets, and weight used during workouts is another great way to hold yourself accountable and a great way to make sure you are making progress. Most exercise programs have the workouts repeating each week for a set number of weeks, so recording weights and reps is a good way to keep up with this and to push yourself in the coming workouts! Progress pictures and body measurements are a great way to record physical progress. Pick a frequency on how often you want to be tracking body weight or measurements (or both) and pictures, set a reminder in your phone to remind you to take these updates however often you would like. I recommend taking measurements, bodyweight, and pictures at the beginning of the year and then do the same every month on the same day, around the same time, and with pictures try to use the same lighting and outfit. This will help you to physically see the changes you are making and you can compare these every month, if you are not progressing at a rate you wish to be progressing at instead of getting discouraged just reevaluate your plan, make necessary changes, and move forward. If you have tracked other things like days you made it to the gym and sets, reps, and weight, this is a good way to look back and see if there are any changes that could be made or any areas you could be more strict on so you progress in the ways you are wanting. Using any one of these strategies is a great way to hold yourself accountable but using a few of them together will allow you to look back and see where you excelled and where you could be pushing yourself harder. Remember these are YOUR GOALS and this is YOUR JOURNEY, when you take responsibility for that and find ways to stay accountable and stay on track the journey gets to be a part of life and you don’t have to rely on motivation or accountability from others to reach where you want to be in YOUR life.

#3 Celebrate Wins

Celebrating wins falls perfectly behind tip #2. When you hit a milestone, find a way to celebrate that keeps you in line with your goals. By this, I mean don’t celebrate by taking a week off, celebrate by buying some new lifting shoes or workout apparel. You can celebrate small wins like making it into the gym 2 days a week for a full month by doing something like having a family member join you for a workout or by getting some new workout gear. Celebrate large milestones like losing “X” amount of inches, or fitting into an old pair of jeans by hiring a trainer or coach, like me :) (cheesy plug), or by buying a couple new workout outfits. Another way I have my online clients celebrate the bigger wins, is by adding a new piece of equipment to their home gym, like adjustable dumbbells, a bench, or a barbell. These tend to be larger and more expensive purchases, so saving them for the big wins is something very rewarding and still helps you on your fitness journey! Finding a way to celebrate wins is more of a mindset aspect to staying on your fitness journey. It is often easy to get discouraged and hung up on things we feel we are not doing so great on, we all tend to focus on the negative a lot of the time. Thinking about certain goals you would like to hit ahead of time and then celebrating them once you hit them will help you to stay motivated and more positive about this journey.

Your fitness journey is not a temporary journey that you will want to quit after you get your desired results, you will want to maintain the results you get and possibly continue to improve upon those results. Falling in love with the process early on is the best way to make sure you don’t FALL OFF. Come up with your plan, make this plan as easy to stick to as possible in the beginning. Find somewhere to train that is convenient for you to get to and that fits your needs and your schedule. Get your training days and frequency set up and don’t go too hard too fast early on. Execute the plan you have created for yourself. Find ways to hold yourself accountable and track your progress. Finally find ways to celebrate your wins and keep yourself in a positive mindset about the process. Doing all of this will keep you not only on track with your fitness journey for the year but for life.