Five Tips for Continued Commitment to Fitness

You always hear the advice that reaching a goal is just step one and fitness is no different. Whatever goal you've set for yourself whether it's to lose a few pounds, bench a certain amount, run a mile in a certain time, or complete a 5K the next step is always the more difficult. Once you accomplish your primary fitness goal the journey shouldn't be over. You always hear how these fad diets or home workouts don't work because a vast majority of the people that complete it soon after put the fat back on and that's because they go back to their unhealthy lifestyle. Fitness isn't a 30 day or 90 day program. It is a lifetime commitment and that is hard for a lot of people. So here are my five tips for sticking with it past that initial goal.

1. Reward Yourself

Go look at any diet plan. Pick one. Paleo, Primal Blueprint, the Whole30, what is the first thing they tell you? Give up foods that taste good, and even more frightening give up alcohol. With the craft beer movement in full swing and some of the best tasting beers (chocolate stout) being the worst for you this is not a good time in the course of humanity to just be giving up alcohol. My tip is don't give it up. Don't give up delicious beer or pizza or burgers or milkshakes but limit them and limit them to rewards. You can do this in a variety of ways. I like to after leg day go and grab a bagel or if I go to the gym five days a week I'll hit up a brewery on the weekend and grab a pizza. Most of your weekday meals should be filled with fish, chicken, green vegetables and other foods that you know are good for you, but if you accomplish all your tasks for that week or even one task on a certain day go ahead and give yourself a reward. It will keep you motivated and won't suck all the joy out of life.

2. Do What you Enjoy

Running is a great exercise. It has scientifically been proven to be one of the best exercises for you, but guess what? I hate running. I find it boring and just getting started with a running program is brutal on my body. It isn't fun. What is fun is for me is lifting large amounts of weight. This might not be fun for you and you might instead enjoy running or you can't stand either but you like yoga or CrossFit or TRX or kickboxing or taking your dog on a hike. It really doesn't matter how you stay active just that you do.

3. Change Things Up

Say you're in the gym one day and just feel sapped of motivation. You've been doing the same three day a week 5x5 program for six weeks and you're just bored of it. The fun is gone from the exercises, your progress has stalled, and parts of your body are starting to cry in pain when you're working them. Stop doing this activity and do something else. Working out might be called work but that doesn't mean it has to feel like a chore. It is perfectly fine to do an activity for a limited amount of time and then move on to something new. In fact it could even be quite beneficial. The body isn't just a machine for raw strength or endurance or speed and switching up the training every now and again is both going to keep you engaged and help the body to develop in different ways.

4. Listen to your Body

Minor aches and pains happen when working out. It's coming to feel discomfort in muscles and joints from the stress of working out but sometimes those minor aches and pains can develop into major injuries. Pain is your body's way of telling you that something is wrong and maybe what you're doing is causing that pain. If the pain is too much to work through or in an area that worries you like the knees or lower back then stop doing an exercise or program and go ahead and apply rule number three and switch to a different program. Our bodies around made to go to the gym every day and lift hundreds of pounds. It's good to take a break every once in awhile and let the body heal but don't take a full break. Keep your workout time slot filled with some sort of activity even if it is a lower intensity activity. Think of it as the equivalent of the High Intensity Interval Training practice of active rest applied on a larger scale but instead of high knees between sets of burpees its a week of daily morning hikes instead of weight training.

5. Schedule a Feat

Why are you working out if death is the only guarantee of life? This is a thought that creeps into my mind every now and then while I'm working out, but this isn't the case if there is something I'm working out for. Not so much a goal anymore but a feat. There are plenty of physical feats around. Many local gyms offer power lifting or bench competitions, there are a million 5K's and if your a bold endurance athlete schedule a marathon or triathlon, then there are the obstacle races that are so popular these days. Go ahead and lay your money down for a spot in one of those and you're going to want to train up. Human nature leans towards vanity. No one wants to finish last in a 5K or fail to climb the 8' wall in a Spartan race. The possibility of failure and humiliation can be a strong motivator. As well as wasting the $100 you laid down to participate in the feat, and when you accomplish it you'll feel better about yourself and ready for the next challenge.

Welcome Back

On February 1 I sat in my recliner bored out of my mind. I had my brand new X-Box One control next to me but the system launch had unfortunately not come with many good games and I needed something to do. That is when I turned to X-Box Fitness. I had recently finally healed from a torn rotator cuff but had also quit my membership to LA Boxing which was now UFC Gym. I wasn't used to seeing a fat out of shape me in the mirror and it had to end. So I figured the X-Box Fitness was free. I started out alternating between a longer workout on one day and a short ten minute one on the next and then I progressed to two or even three workouts a day.

The biggest thing I did though was I didn't stop. My ankle, knee, shoulder, and wrists all took turns hurting but I didn't back off the workouts. I was careful with the areas that were in pain but I knew if I let my body stop me I'd never get back to where I needed to be. Fast forward a few months and I started walking down to the community gym every other morning to use the dumbbells and cardio equipment. I mixed that in with the X-Box Fitness and started to see even better results.

The Path to 1000 Push-ups Begins with 100

The photo on the left is from March, a month after I started working out, and the photo on the right is from this past Saturday. The lighting in the two photos is a little different and I am in a slightly different pose but you can see I've made some progress from then to now. The big reason for this post though isn't to show before and after photos. The photo on the right was really taken as a before photo, because for the first time in my working out I've set a real goal.

Hiking and Wining in Deleplane Virginia

Living right off of interstate 66 can have its benefits. The highway often creates a wall of traffic so impenetrable that it feels like I live in a walled city from which there is no escape, but on a beautiful Sunday morning in late June and heading west traffic is not an issue. As escapes out to the country go Sky Meadows State Park is among one of the best. It lacks the majestic waterfalls of White Oak Canyon or the views of Old Rag, but it is less of a drive and still provides a good hike.

It is easy to forget how steep the North Ridge Trail is until you're halfway up it and covered in sweat on a cool 70 degree morning. The entire loop which includes the North Ridge Trail, the AT, and the White House Ambassador Trail is somewhere between four and five miles long. You get some good views of Paris, Virginia and can even see Washington DC on the horizon if you look for it. Sky Meadows provides a good hike to start the day and that was what we were looking for as visiting some of the local wineries was our main goal.

Focus on What you Can Control

Recently I've developed a new outlook on life. For a couple weeks I was feeling overwhelmed by forces out of my control. I was reading other people's thoughts on social media on how people like me are everything that is wrong with the world. I was thinking of writing a counter to this, but it would do no good and maybe I'm a little too afraid of opening myself up for criticism (I should work on that). The fact is we live in a society that claims to value individualism but at the same time is quick to stereotype and has whitewashed many of our identities. Think about America like a stew full of beautiful and unique ingredients but if any stew is cooked too long it becomes a brown indistinguishable mush.

The other aspect of life out of my control that was bothering me is what has become of the American Dream. People have lost the focus on the actual American Dream and only think of the stuff. The American Dream is the little house with the picket fence and two and a half kids. Those are the benefits of the American Dream but it is not the dream itself. Think back to Thomas Jefferson and the ideal American, the yeoman farmer. The self sufficient man. The American Dream isn't having a great credit rating so that you can go into massive debt and have all this stuff it is to be financially independent.

The Easiest thing to do is Quit

I've reached a point in my workout routine where I look in the mirror and don't see the results I was expecting. In the first couple months of working out I saw amazing results. Belts that I wasn't even able to fit into before starting now can be pulled through to the second loop on my jeans, and I can fit into pants I haven't worn in ten years. Now that I've seen those results I want more, but as I've gotten in better shape the improvements have slowed down.

It is a little disconcerting to go from seeing very fast results to not seeing results because the progress is that slow, but progress is progress and while the desire exists to simply give up that isn't an option. Even if I don't make any progress forward going backwards is the worst thing possible. When you've dug yourself into a hole the first thing to do is to stop digging. While in four months of working out I haven't gotten to where I want to be I am in a hell of a lot of a better place than I was.

A Worthy Goal from a Petty Reason

The impetus for change can come from many sources. Some people wake up one day, look in the mirror, and decide they are tired of the person looking back at them. Others see a friend make a life altering change and wish to follow in those footsteps. Others still may be inspired by the story of the stranger that has made a great change in their life. My reason for getting back into shape was not so noble.

My wife's college friends picked this summer to have a reunion of sorts. I've met a couple of them intermittently throughout my association with my wife, but I've never gotten to know any of them. Essentially they are strangers. The important part isn't the friend's I've met that will be there it is the one that I haven't. When my wife was in college she had a boyfriend as many college females do and this boyfriend and her were friends with the same people. The big point out of all this rambling is that her ex-boyfriend, the only other male she had a long term relationship with, will be there.