With how crazy life can be, taking control of any aspect of your life can ease anxiety and give a feeling of peace. When it comes to taking control of your fitness there is also the benefit of feeling better and looking better! Here are some steps that you can do to take control of your fitness and start getting the results you've always wanted.
Control Your Fitness: 3 Steps for improvement
Step 1: Plan Your Nutrition
I've heard a quote circulating in the fitness industry recently "Rare is the person who just winged it and got results." How true this is!
Many times people think they can just make good nutrition choices on the spot throughout the day. They walk over to the fridge and think "Hmmm what am I gunna eat for lunch?" This is a trap! Deciding what you want to eat while you're starting to get hungry is the worst way of making a nutritional choice. This is because our "Lizard brain" starts to take over. As in - what looks good at the time is what you will eat, and usually what looks good to our "lizard brain" is going to be 2 things : 1 most readily available, and 2 the highest calorie item
Tip: Start out by picking just one meal and plan that one meal for the whole week. For example: dinner. Choose the protein and vegetables, then decide ahead of time how much of each you will have.
Step 2: Plan Your Workouts
"Proper preparation prevents poor performance."
Just like with our nutritional goals getting interrupted by our "lizard brain", activity goals can also make their way to the bottom the list if we do not have a plan. It can become all to easy to push off activity especially if there is no plan for it. Put it in your calendar, communicate to others that might need to be involved (like a significant other).
It doesn't have to be complicated. Most of us have cell phones in our pockets at all times tracking our daily steps; work on getting that number up. Research has shown that 10,000 steps a day is a good marker for general physical activity benefits including increased calorie burn and low level cardiovascular adaptations.
Tip: To add an extra layer of accountability, plan your workouts with a friend or hire a personal trainer. You could also get a kick start with monthly workout programs.
Step 3: Change Your Self-Talk
Have you ever heard of a self-fulling prophecy? That often times what you say to yourself in your mind, is the way things will go. There is a huge body of scientific evidence that self-talk, positive and negative, will dictate the choices we make.
Keep your inner self-talk positive, uplifting, short, and sweet. This inner self talk applies to fitness and nutrition. When you catch yourself saying phrases like "I shouldn't have this," "I bet the scale hasn't moved at all," or "I've always struggled, so why bother," stop and take a breath. Think about why you're feeling these ways. Remember that there is no "good" or "bad" food, just the way you view it. Instead, think about how these actions line up with your values and goals. Do they move you closer or further from you health and fitness goal? If they help you, cool. If not, that's cool too. No judgement. You make a choice to consciously enjoy what you do on a daily basis. So go ahead, eat the cookie. Just stop feeling bad about it, that's not helpful.
Tip: Use your inner self-talk to help your focus and success. If you are on a run but want to stop, tell yourself "You got this" "Keep going". For nutrition, if you mess up, don't say "well I might as well make the whole day bad," instead, tell yourself "It was one meal, the next one will be better." Then move on!
Summary:
Plan your Nutrition, Plan your activity, and work on your positive self-talk. To get a kick-start on implementing these steps contact me at TrainWithKyle.com for a complimentary strategy session.
Kyle Cook, M.S.
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