Friday, December 28, 2007

The One Word Answer To Your Fitness Questions

If you’re like most people you struggle with your weight. Perhaps you are one of the many who lose weight and then gain it all back again; can there be anything more frustrating? Maybe you have been carrying around unwanted weight for years and have lost all hope. It is never too late and everyone has the ability to lose weight.

In my business, I get to see the people who fail to lose their weight and the people who succeed; I see it first hand every day and have been for years. I can honestly tell you that losing weight comes down to one thing and one thing only. What is it? Consistency.

This hit me one day when I was just looking around my gym at all the people working out. Most of them have been members for years and so I know their patterns. The ones who are fit and have kept their weight off are the ones who are consistent with their workouts and consistent with their eating habits. The ones who go up and down in weight or just stay up are the ones who come to the gym in spurts, we’ll see them regularly for a while and then they disappear only to reappear sometime later feeling awful and heavy.

Consistency is the answer! It is number one thing you need to work on in order to achieve weight loss success. It is what clearly separates the fit from the fat. If you conquer this than everything else will simply fall into place and you will lose weight.

I am hoping that you will see this as good news, not bad. Consistency does not mean perfect. What it means is that you stay on track 80% of the time. You may miss a workout or two a month but you don’t disappear from the gym for weeks. You may have pizza and beer a couple of times a month but the majority of the time your diet is healthy. That is what consistency means and it is what is needed to lose weight and keep it off.

The biggest problem we see in this business is the off and on/start and stop trap that so many people fall into when they want to lose weight. A person will start eating better and working out and than a few weeks go by, they miss a workout and go out to eat and bam! Just like that they are taken off course. The key is to miss that workout and go out to eat and then wake up the next day and get right back on track. That is consistency in a nutshell.

Losing weight is made out to be too difficult when it just doesn’t have to be. If you have weight to lose, make a plan that is doable so that you can be consistent and stick with it. Write it down if you have to, whatever makes it more real and permanent for you. Learn to deal with going out to eat without it sending you into a feeding frenzy that lasts for weeks. No one ever gained weight by eating one big meal, but many people gain weight by eating big meals often. Learn to prioritize your workout times so that you stay consistent, exercise is key to taking and keeping weight off. Be consistent and enjoy as you lose your unwanted weight.

No comments: