Whatever your fitness goals, right now is the perfect time to get in shape. Put the junk food and inactivity behind you…it’s time to take action and change the shape of your body. Here are some tips to help you get in the best shape of your life.
1. Make One Dietary Change This Week
Of course there is an ideal way you should be eating. But radical New Year’s Resolution style changes rarely last more than a few days or weeks. If you want lasting results, be realistic and sensible. And your initial short term goals should factor in what you have been eating up to this point.
- From Fast Food to Self-Prepared. If you’ve been eating fast food or restaurant food 5 or more times a week, cut back to once or twice. If you normally have it once or twice in a week, just skip it for the next seven days. Real food prepared in your home will typically have much lower fat, sodium, cholesterol, calories, and preservatives.
- Soda to Water. If you normally drink Coke or other soft drinks (including diet, sugar-free, etc) every day, change that to water. At first this will seem like cruel and unusual punishment, but after 2-3 days of detoxing your energy levels will increase and in a few weeks you’ll likely see tangible results in your appearance. For a treat add a little fresh squeezed lemon and a couple drops of stevia to mineral water. The stevia is a natural sweetener so the drink tastes a little bit like home made Sprite. Not exactly like it, mind you. But when you’re used to having sweet drinks all the time this might just hit the spot.
- Veggies. Not eating fresh vegetables everyday? You absolutely need them to be healthy, lean, and strong. Try incorporating a salad a day, or some other form of fresh vegetables (raw is preferable). This will improve virtually every aspect of your health, including your bodyweight and stomach bulge.
- Red Meat to Red Beans. Eat red meat all the time? This week swap it out a few times for beans, legumes, seeds, or nuts. These are easier to digest, lower in saturated fat, and provide plenty of protein, fiber, and healthy fats.
- Fruit Breakfast. Heavy breakfast every day? Just two days this week eat nothing but fruit up until lunchtime. Fresh squeezed fruit juice and all fruit (and vegetable) smoothies can work wonders. Try to eat the fruit on its own, without cereal, bagels, yogurt, and the like. Keep it simple to avoid digestive issues that may arise when mixing fruit with these other foods.
(Be warned that if you’re not used to eating this much fruit & vegetables you may experience some gas. Yep. Gas. This is normal as the high fiber content will be stirring things up inside you and cleaning you out. The more consistent you become with good foods, the less toxicity to clean out.)
So for now pick just one from this list and act on it. Then next week build on this accomplishment by adding another. Any one of these changes will help you get in shape. When your goals are achievable you are more likely to gain momentum and enjoy the journey.
2. Join a Gym…or Just Create Your Own!
The advantages of going to a traditional gym are fairly obvious:
- Lots of equipment at your disposal
- Personal trainers & fitness instructors to teach you good form and new exercises
- Dozens of people surrounding you who also care about fitness
- Much cheaper, despite a small initial outlay
- No wasted time commuting
- Your home is open 24 hrs a day
- There aren’t dozens of people surrounding you with germs, colds, & sweaty backsides
- No waiting in line to do your next exercise
- Fresh air is more readily available, & oxygen is important to your workout
So if you can, join a gym and take advantage of the perks. If not, convert a little section of floorspace to a workout area at home.
Essentially all you really need is a floor and your own body weight to to get started. But if you have just a little cash you might want to invest in the following: mat, bands, ball, weight.
- An exercise mat (or yoga mat) to put some padding between you and the floor.
- A couple resistance bands (aka powerbands, exercise tubing, etc). These are great for flexibility, warming up, strength training, and rehabilitation after injury.
- A gym ball. The big blow up kind. These offer a wide range of simple core, lower, and upper body exercises.
- Basic free weights. Could be as simple as a couple light to medium weight dumbbells, or kettleballs, or a curl bar with a few plates to stack on the end to adjust the weight. Two dumbbells with a basic assortment of plates to attach will provide the most versatility.
(Check SeamlessD.com often as we will be providing home workout tips and resources if you like the idea of training at home or in your own backyard.)
Question. Is this something you’d really like to do? If you can honestly answer yes, then start the clock. Give yourself 24 hours from right now to get inside the gym or start your own home workout. Show yourself just how serious you are.
3. Get Several People Behind You.
Tell several people about your plan to get in shape. Not just your best friend or your mother or whoever happens to let you off the hook when you change your mind. When more people know you’re on a fitness mission, you create a higher degree of accountability. Peer pressure at its finest!
More people will encourage you and offer tips (occasionally even helpful). Before long something happens…getting in shape soon is no longer just a goal, it becomes part of your identity.
You’re now the “workout guy” or “fitness girl” at the office and amongst your social circles. And silly as it may seem, that social recognition can go a long way psychologically as you aspire to change your body for the better.
Tell people who you think will be encouraging. And if a few people are cynical…just use that as fuel for your fire.
4. Team Up with a Buddy.
Whether it’s your spouse, good friend, or just an acquaintance you frequently see at the gym, find someone with a little motivation of their own to band together with on your journey.
You don’t even need to have the same fitness goals. If one wants to bulk up with muscle and the other hopes to shed fat, the bond still exists because you’re both motivated and on a similar journey to look and feel better. It helps just having someone to go to the gym with, or a co-worker to chat with about what you ate last night.
Talk to them. Talk. Talk. Talk! Don’t go days without chatting. If you read an interesting article, tell them about it. If they are struggling with junk food cravings, be a good friend and go help them out.
Just like with anything, it feels good to be heard, to have someone watching out for you. So if you don’t already have a workout partner of some sort, put the word out there. You could mention it on Facebook. Or simply make an effort to be that supportive friend to someone else and more often than not they’ll quite naturally want to support you in return.
If it takes some time to find a good workout partner, don’t let that hold you back. While teaming up is a huge help, at the end of the day this is your journey and you can’t expect anyone else to carry you. Not even your personal trainer. When help from the outside is there, ride the wave. But when it’s not, swim! Learn how to take care of things yourself and before you know it, support will return.
5. Grab Hold of Whatever Works Best for You.
There are millions of things you can try, but only a few that you really need to apply to your life. If we were to put a fancy name on this concept, it might be the Personalization Principle.
In Your Workout:
Consider one facet of getting in shape, your leg workout. If you read a couple mags and consult with a few trainers you might be facing 47 exercises you can do for your legs.
How many of those do you actually NEED to do in order to obtain reasonably good results? For now probably just two or three! You might learn 7 or 8, but some can be eliminated if they hurt your joints, require equipment you don’t have access to, or don’t deliver maximum results.
And more than likely there are one or two that simply feel good for where you are right now…these will probably be a good place to start. If the results plateau down the road or you get bored at any stage, you can always branch out and try a couple of the other 47 exercises you have at your disposal.
In Your Food:
This personalization principle also pertains to how you eat. We recommend a diet very high in raw fruits, vegetables, seeds, nuts, and oils. But if you’ve been eating a high amount of processed, cooked, or junk food up until this point, you’re probably not ready to fully eat this new way. That’s fine. Just pick a few things that appeal to your taste buds and this will launch you in the right direction. If you hate broccoli but love a fresh smoothie, start there and enjoy the healthy change!
In General:
If you have a hard time with health food, but love a good workout, for now just make the workout your focus. Or let’s say you’re injured and can’t workout for the moment. Cultivate your eating habits with natural foods that deliver nutrition without making you fat.
Think of all the gurus out there. All the books, chapters, articles, and lists of what you should do to get in shape. Hundreds of thousands of rules, principles, and guidelines. There are plenty of conflicting ideas and it is absolutely impossible to follow everyone’s imperatives. At some point you just have to find a few trustworthy sources or mentors and try out what they recommend. Eventually you’ll learn what resonates with your body and you won’t bother with the thousands of other things you could be doing.
6. Pick a Sport or Activity, then Become an Expert.
…Or at least more knowledgeable and experienced than you are now.
What have you always wanted to be great at, but still aren’t? Why not take a class? Or if there isn’t a class in your area, learn everything you can online and get out there and do it…and do it well!
Two keys to being able to stick with a sport or physically demanding activity are:
- Engaging your mind with the activity.
- Excelling at the activity.
- Cycling
- Mountain Biking
- Motocross
- Volleyball
- Soccer
- Swimming
- Surfing
- Lifeguarding
- Hiking
- Basketball
- Golf
- Softball
- Triathlon
- Bodybuilding
- Powerlifting
- Personal Training (training others)
- Martial Arts
- MMA (Mixed Martial Arts)
- Yoga
- Dance
…The list goes on. Look at those activities again. Can you think of something not on this list?
If you are doing an activity you love, you’ll be happier and getting in shape will come more naturally. So pick something. Study it. Ask questions. Find other people who do it. Master it! (And btw…if you thought of something missing from the list, you might give it special consideration).
So start today. Get a plan of attack. Are you going to join a gym today or just drop to the floor and gimme twenty? What sort of activity appeals to you? Who can you team up with in your efforts? Who can you call on to get a little moral support and accountability? What will you change about your eating habits for the next week?
Look for the healthy foods and exercises that you really love, then work on perfecting your diet and routine later. For now just have fun and build some momentum!
We look forward to hearing great things about your progress.
(Why not start now? Like, RIGHT now?)