How to Jump Start Your Fitness Routine (12/22)

Aloha readers! 

The New Year is quickly approaching, and many people are starting to make New Year resolutions. If you're one of the many to include weight loss, eating healthy, being more active on your resolution list, then you'll find this article helpful! Often we wait until last minute to make a new year resolution, without really making a plan on how we are going to achieve those goals. 

By planning ahead of time, you'll be ahead of the game and that much more closer to obtaining your new year resolution!
"If you fail to prepare, prepare to fail." 

1. Create a routine - Create a routine that will work for you. You can research for hours what worked for other people, but if it won't work for you, then it just won't happen. Set a time to workout when you know you will have the time. If you're a morning person, maybe working out in the morning before work is best. Or do you have a hard time not hitting the snooze button more than 3 times in the morning? If that's you, then maybe an after-work or later evening working is more suitable for you. Set small, but specific goals. To read more about goal setting, check out my S.M.A.R.T Goal Setting article. 

2. Plan your schedule out ahead of time - Do you ever find yourself scrambling in the morning trying to figure out all the things you have to do that day? The way to avoid that is to plan your schedule out ahead of time. This can be the night before, or even a few days ahead. Take 10 - 15 minutes the night before to list out the tasks you need to do, and what time you're going to tackle each task. Did I mention the satisfaction of crossing things off a to-do list? 

3. Make time for exercise - Make it a priority. Treat it like an important meeting with your boss - yourself! You wouldn't skip out on a meeting with your boss, so why should you skip out on your own workout? We all have the same 24 hours in a day. The difference is what you do with those 24 hours - what you make as your priority and how you're going to make time for it. 

4. Start slow - Evaluate your fitness level and find an activity that's suitable for you to start with. We want to start slow and start building up on it - rather than trying to go too fast and fatiguing ourselves out. Too often we want to jump into activities that may be too intense to help us reach our goal faster, but that can do more harm than good. 

5. Adjust your nutrition - You'd be surprised how changing your nutrition even the slightest bit can make you feel better. Like with exercise, start off slow. You don't have to change everything at once - simply cutting back on that drink or soda pop at dinner is a good starting point. Then progress on to replacing those drinks with water or milk at other meals. This way, you can slowly introduce more nutritious foods in to your diet while substituting out the less-nutritious foods. 

6. Build a support system - This is probably one of the most important parts! Tell your friends and family this new adventure that you're going to start, and get them to keep you accountable and support you - or even better, get them to join you! A big difference can be seen in people who workout together rather than by themselves in terms of motivation and progress. Post your workouts or workout selfies on social media to keep your accountability! You may even inspire some distant friends and family members to get off the couch and start moving! 

I hope you find these tips helpful, and that they'll help you in setting your new year resolution goals! Leave your goals below in the comment section to keep yourself accountable! 

Cheers!

xoxo