Struggling to stick to your new habits?
What to do when you fall off that diet and fitness wagon...
February is almost over, maybe work and family life has taken over from that initial kick of motivation you had. Maybe they haven't, but for some reason, you just can’t seem to stick to your programme or the health habits you set for yourself in 2023 …Here are 3 things to consider:
Every passing moment is another chance to turn it all around: This one is obvious but harder to remember when we’re berating ourselves over an unfinished programme or inconsistent healthy habits. So you couldn’t finish the programme in 12 weeks. So you stopped at week 3 and never found the motivation to start again. Today opens the potential for a totally different story. With each passing moment, we have another, new and beautiful opportunity to begin again.
Remember, we’re doing this health and fitness thing for life, not for 12 weeks. If you fell off the wagon, you just get back on because this is a lifelong pursuit. 12 weeks simply represents a block of time to keep us on the same page and to allow us to measure changes over time when things have been consistent. If they haven’t been consistent, it’s ok - you have more than 12 weeks to sort it out.
Check your internal narrative: The story of why you couldn’t finish it in the past isn’t as relevant as the story you tell yourself about the future. However, often we will use our past as a lens for future outcomes - the problem with this system is that if you’re always focused on the ‘failures’ and ‘problems’ it’s very difficult to see (and practice) these new healthy habits with a positive perspective. Over time, if our endeavours to be healthy and fit are shrouded in a negative “I always fail” narrative we will grow tired of the process.
Finally, I want to remind those of you on the gym-based training path that you have a whole other thing to navigate and that is; THE GYM.
Sometimes you won’t be able to get there, or the equipment will be taken up or life will just get in the way and keep you from walking through those doors - that’s where having an online PT there to guide and support you comes in extremely handy. If you can't make it into the gym on one of your training days, let's move some exercises around so you can still train, but maybe it will have to be at home today.
Having a personal coach in your back pocket means that if you couldn’t get to the gym that week, you can still hit progressive (and intense) workouts from home that align with the goals you are trying to achieve.
The benefit of this is that you can still maintain that healthy habit, even if you couldn’t get to the gym!
