Some large percentage (there is no single, reliable number) of individuals have trouble keeping up with their resolutions. Furthermore, a high portion of those are health and weight related. So why do these resolutions fail?
Things you need to succeed (A.D.D. version):
Let’s break this down a bit further… Read the rest of this entry »
When starting something new it is always exciting, interesting, even enjoyable. Starting a new workout is the same way: You are doing things you have never done before, your energy level is up, and your mood is improved because of the new rush of endorphines, not to mention the elation from the early results. Then, something happens: The honeymoon ends.
Some of the benefits are still there: energy, endorphines, probably results. However, the idea as a whole has lost some of that new car smell. Maybe it feels too much like work, or it’s getting too repetitive. Whatever the reason, you are caught in the cross-section between new and routine. Get past this hump, and you’ve got it made, but lots of people don’t get past that bump in the road.
The simple answer is that it is something wrong or lacking in them. The truth is, everyone can be stifled by a project or a task after a while, before it becomes part of your everyday, no matter how much of a “Can Do” attitude you may have. The trick is to know it is there, waiting, so you can say no to the distraction or opportunity that would stop you from getting into the happy section known as routine: When the workout becomes not an additional part of your day, but something integrated within it, like lunch, or breathing, for those workoutaholics out there.
Stay tuned for a follow-up post with ideas on how to get through those bumps along the way to a goal and lifetime commitment to better health and fitness and your workout routine (hey, how did that word get in there!?).
Lots of people workout. Many will say they are doing it right, because nobody wants to believe that they are working out wrong. If you are burning calories, your muscles burn (in a good way), and you feel satisfied, how could it possibly be wrong?
In one word: no. However, there are definitely better ways to do the same thing, and a few reasons you may want to consider it. First, it is important to realize that there is no one way to do most exercises, especially when talking about bodyweight exercises. Remember, just as in everyday life, full of chiefs (and few indians), the fitness world has a lot of experts. The point though never changes, and the goal is always the same: don’t injure yourself, don’t over stress your joints, and get maximum value out of time spent.
When doing an exercise without properly reviewing advice and detailed explanations, you risk taking yourself out of the game before you ever get a rhythm. Fitness is a journey, a life long decision (with some needed vacations, I grant you), and a rewarding experience. The last thing you want to hear from a community is, “Time to see the doctor.” Secondarily, doing the exercises with good form ensures you are using all the appropriate muscles to full capacity. Consider this series of questions:
Barring the obvious, I’m not going into details on what is the right answer for the above questions, but I do want to entice you to think about the options and outcomes possible. Working out is as much work as it is fun, as long as you’re doing it the best way possible. You don’t have to be an ‘A’ student, just don’t be a ‘D’ student.
Chances are if you’re visiting Simplefit for the first time you’re either looking to make changes in your life that include shaping up for the first time (or for the first time in a long while) and/or busting out of a workout routine that has become boring. I was in the same situation. Earlier this year I weighed in at 212 pounds with body fat percentage around 29%. I’ve been working out with free weights and occasional cardio since I was a teenager but lately I had let my eating (and beer drinking) habits get out of hand. So while I was still going to the gym, I certainly wasn’t fit. When spring came around, I started biking to work once or twice per week and at 15 miles each way, I burned some pounds off through the early summer, weighing in at 207 pounds and dropping body fat percentage to approximately 28%. But I started to feel something was missing. I didn’t enjoy being stuck in the gym lately with the weather being so nice. I wasn’t progressing in any lifts and I didn’t even care to try. I was just maintaining and my eating habits were still atrocious. I kept telling myself that I was going to lose weight but it was always qualified with “I’ll start tomorrow.” (right after this bowl of ice cream or 6 pack of beer). I sometimes strung 3 or 4 good days together only to stray and give up and fall back into the routine. At one point, I basically gave up after eating half a can of Pringles and told myself just to accept that I’ll never be able to lose weight and that I’m as fit as I’m going to get. I started to rationalize the fact that with a full-time job and family, I just don’t have the time and energy to be as fit as I was in college. At that point, I could have gone one of two ways. The easiest way would probably just be a continuation of the same boring routine maintaining my level of fitness and not eating better which would ultimately lead into giving up the workout years down the road and gaining another 20 pounds. I nearly accepted this. The turning point came when I made a trip to a store that has one of those free blood pressure checking chairs. I had always enjoyed those chairs because I was blessed with a below average blood pressure and consistently received reading of around 115/70. I liked to show off that fact. But that day I got in the chair and, ouch, 138 over 84! Whoa. That was my rock-bottom. I think I had harbored the idea that even though I was 28% body fat, I was still in shape because I went to the gym everyday. The blood pressure reading belied that fact. I needed to make changes and I needed to be enthusiastic about them to continue with them.
I turned to a technique I had used in the past to accomplish tasks that were easy to leave undone, goal-setting. I decided that I would weigh below 200 pounds by the end of a six-week long MBA course I took over the summer. I determined that the actions I would need to take in order to reach that goal would involve a workout routine that I was enthusiastic about and that I would need to be responsible for my eating habits. Studies have shown that it takes 21 days to be able to change or adopt a habit. I wrote my goal down on my whiteboard in my office and looked at it everyday. I promised that no matter what I felt like or what roadblocks appeared in my life, my first mini-goal to meet my main goal of getting under 200 pounds in six weeks (about a pound of weightloss per week) was to track all the food I eat for 21 days. I incorporated a food tracking software such as Fitday or DietPower or TheDailyPlate. I never believed that food journals or food tracking would make that big of a difference but I was humbled at how far off my estimated were as far as portion size and my total daily calories. Tracking my food intake really gave me a more accurate idea of what I was eating.
Simplefit fit into my new routine by getting me outside in the nice weather and being extremely well suited for well defined goals. Simplefit only tracks two metrics, rounds and time. This makes it extremely easy to track progress and strive for personal bests. If I performed 25 rounds last week, I want to break that the next. If I performed 5 rounds in 7 minutes, 30 seconds I know what I need to do to beat it. Lifting weights is a little more difficult in that there are so many metrics to track including how much weight to use, number of reps, number of sets, rest between sets, how fast to perform reps, when to go up in weight, how much weight to go up, which exercises, and how many exercises per body part. It can be done for sure, but it’s not conducive for someone struggling to begin a workout routine. With Simplefit, there are no complex exercises or machines to figure out or intimidate beginners. Nearly everyone can identify pull-ups, push-ups and squats and the
Today, I weigh around 185 with less than 19% body fat and wake up looking forward to my next workout. My new long-term goal is to get through all levels of the Simplefit workout.
In conclusion, if you’re about to or have given up on becoming fit, or feeling like your old workout routine has become stagnant, I would recommend giving the Simplefit program 21 days of your life.
ZenHabits has a great instruction for helping you keep to your goals.
By Splint
Welcome to the simplefit blog!
A place people can blog about the pain and joy that is simplefit!