It’s about this time all the “New Year, New You” articles and gym adverts start popping up, and we hate them with a vengeance. While this limbo between Christmas and New Year is a great time to think about what you’d like to achieve with your health and fitness, all too often we see people set unrealistic and unachievable goals, determined to be a new and better version of themselves. This inevitably leads to disappointment and abandoning all the good intentions that were set.
The truth is that you don’t need radical change to be a “new you”, in fact, radical change is one of the worst things you can do. Instead you need to look at where you want to be and then work out what the smallest steps are that you can take to get there. In order to achieve lasting change, we need to make changes that can last. Habit is key.
Here are our top tips for creating lasting change this New Year.
- Work out your barriers
Say you want to drop a bit of fat - what’s holding you back; is it that regular bottle of wine each night? Is it that you’re really good during the week and then binge at the weekends? Is it that you don’t have a regular eating pattern? Say you want to improve your cardiovascular fitness – have you been plodding along the same 5k run every week without varying it or changing the intensity of your runs? Spend a good amount of time thinking about why you’re not seeing the results you want to. If you don’t know why then find somebody who can help you work it out.
- Address the basics
Okay, so now you know where you’ve been going wrong it’s time to think about the small steps you can take to address these problems. If you snack too much or binge at the weekends, the first thing you need to focus on is building a regular eating pattern. If you’re drinking loads, try and cut down to one drink per night or just drinking at the weekends. If you’ve hit a wall with your training, think about how you can change your training split, intensity or volume to overcome it. In six months, you’ll be amazed at the transformation you’ve made, and you probably won’t even have noticed any sacrifices.
- Look at the bigger picture
Over the next few weeks these small changes you’ve made will become habit and you’ll hardly notice them anymore. This is the time to take a step back and start to look at the bigger picture. When our clients are looking at fat loss this is the time when we work with them to analyse their daily environment and habits. Can you find 2,000 extra steps each day? Can you carve out an extra hour or so each week to train a bit more or even start exercising for the first time? Start building in these additional habits to ensure your progress doesn’t stall.
- Tweak the tiny details
Now you’ve got the basics covered and your progress should be pretty speedy but more importantly it’ll be sustainable. We can now start to optimise your daily routine for your goals, looking in more detail about the macronutrients you’re having, getting more particular with the type and frequency of exercise and all the while making sure your life is still completely recognisable to you, without too many sacrifices. It’s so important we don’t jump from step one straight to step four otherwise the changes simply won’t stick in the long term.
We work with all of our clients to ensure their results are enjoyable, sustainable and long-lasting. Whatever your goals this year, focus on habits rather than speed and you’ll be amazed what you can achieve.