We’ve touched on lifestyle changes we need to make to protect our fitness choices. Now it’s time to explore a few other areas that will help us stay on course for our New Year and beyond. Because this WILL be the year we put on and off fitness efforts to an end for good won’t it?
The idea is to take off the weight and keep it off. And I’m going to give you every tool and trick I know of to make that idea a success!
Schedule Regular Fitness Times
Just like you get up on time five days a week (or more) to go to school or work, you should do the same for your fitness training if you want to stay on course for the long term. Sticking with the same time incorporates what we have learned in our Chapter on Habits to our advantage.
Having it set that training is an every day part of life like going to work makes losing our gains next to impossible. I have close friends who have stuck with this tip for years and made fitness transformations that should be on television they are so amazing. Persistence pays.
Review Your Progress
Keeping a photo album, either shirtless in shorts (for guys) or in bathing suits (for women) starting at day one with updates every month over the years gives a clear, solid picture of why staying on course is so vital. Whenever you feel the temptation to be lazy or over indulge head to the closet and open to day one. Ask yourself if you would like to go back their, or worse? I’m betting that junk food will have lost it’s appeal pretty quickly.
Ignore Training and Diet Fads
There are certainly fitness sources that provide valuable, actionable and useful information free from hype and over-self interest. I would like to think I am one of them. There are also fitness sources that will try to sell you snake oil and useless programs just to make a buck.
These are best ignored as they can distract you from what works and sometimes even cause injury. Buck the trends and keep things simple. Only accept advice from those who have earned your trust.
Remember MORE is Always Possible
Don’t let your successes seem like the end of the road. There’s always new goals that can be set and accomplished that can bring you even more excitement and joy.
Your lean now, but haven’t you always wanted six pack abs? Well figure out how to get them and work towards it! Or how about doing 25 pull ups for those who like strength goals? Or 100 push ups without stopping? Or running a marathon? If setting big new fitness goals helps motivate you keep doing it and accomplish them one by one. Before you know it you may have a fitness resume fit for an award winning auto biography!
Thinking of your New Year’s weight loss resolution as a starting point for a new active healthy life is where it’s at. We all had to start somewhere. The finish line is something we should NEVER set. The future should always be exciting and something we look forward to!
Take Action – Build a New YOU for the New Year
You can have the best information on weight loss in the world, a membership to an A class gym and one of the coaches from television’s “The Biggest Loser” as your success coach, but without the willingness to take action what is it all worth?
Nothing.
If you are truly serious about building a new YOU for the New Year you have to stop being a person who JUST reads about it. Or talks about it. Or thinks about it. Or PLANS to do it.
You NEED to be the type of person who uses fat loss knowledge as fuel and inspiration and who takes swift action to put it to good use.
Taking action is the final key to making sure you succeed with your New Year’s weight loss goals and beyond! Otherwise things will stay the same. If not become worse. It’s a truth that can’t be escaped.
Don’t forget…
ACTION is the Way to Success
Everything here in our Guide from positive thinking to the diet and exercise plans are basically worthless if they aren’t applied. They all need to be put into effect through you taking ACTION for their benefits to be felt and seen.
Your new body will be built through action not through talking, reading or thinking alone. If getting lean didn’t require work their would be a lot more fantastic looking people in the world.
Many over weight and out of shape people have whole libraries full of fitness books and hard drives packed with weight loss guides. They never lose a pound because they never act on the things they’ve read. Don’t be one of these people.
Today is Better than Tomorrow
Many good intentioned people spend months and even years putting off their efforts into getting into shape until “tomorrow”. Sadly, this tomorrow keeps being postponed again and again. Meanwhile, the pounds continue to pack on and their quality of life stays far removed from what it could be. Live up to your full potential. Don’t wait for the perfect conditions to begin. They may never come. Start today, regardless. Tomorrow may never come.
Keep Moving Forward
Stasis is the enemy of getting fit. Once you get started do everything in your power to keep moving forward. The small actions you take everyday are a continuation of your important decision to get started. These little victories will add up until you see the dream you staring back in the mirror one day. You can bet on it.
Now the ball is in your court. You’ve taken the time to acquire and read our Guide. You’ve committed to building a lean, fit and healthy New You for the New Year. All that’s left is to get things started for real in the real world. Make today the first day of the rest of your life. I know you can do it and I can hardly wait to hear about your successes big and small. This is the New Year where it all changes for the better. Can you feel it too?
