Chart Your Progress
A very important thing for you to do when you are on a fitness program is to keep checking how you are progressing. This can keep you highly motivated, especially when you see that you are becoming what you want yourself to become.
So, when you are on a diet program, weigh yourself often, doesn’t matter even if you do it several times a day. When you are jogging, check how many steps you can climb without breathing. When you are working out at the gym, keep checking your abs and chest. When you are on a program to improve your blood sugar level or your blood pressure, keep monitoring yourself. In fact, go for more frequent physical checkups just to see how well you are progressing.
Humans are very much result-oriented people. We want to see facts and figures – we want to see things as raw as they can be. This is the reason why charting your progress continuously can help you immensely.
When you see that your waist size has come down from 38” to 36”, when you see that you can get into skimpier shorts, when you see that you are closer to touching your toes than before, you become very much pleased with yourself. You see that your efforts are bearing fruit. This keeps the fire burning.
Keep an Eye
Initially, you will want to monitor yourself quite often. Your family may even mock you for that. But it doesn’t matter. You need to know where you are heading. So keep looking as much as you want. It is only when you are in love with your body that you will think of doing
something for it. And no one loves your body more than you, so the onus of making it fitter and healthier is entirely on you.
You have every right to know how your body is shaping up. The bestpart is that this eggs you on to do better for your body. So keep monitoring yourself and keep working out to your heart’s content.
Keep the Motivation On – Give Yourself Incentives
Time and again, reward yourself for your achievements. However, don’t reward yourself with a food treat; that will only make matters worse. In any case, we are too much fixated on food. When we are happy, the first thing that comes to our mind is a treat that involves
the worst kinds of unhealthy foods possible. And this is what brings on most of the health problems that we face today. We could do much better from a health point of view if we cured our fixation with food.
But you could always give yourself a healthy incentive. You could go on a trip, for example. You could take a break from work and simply hang out at home, watching DVDs. Or you could cook a healthy meal all by yourself at home if that interests you. However, the best incentive is looking in the mirror. When you see the improved shape you are in, you will want to congratulate yourself. In fact, you should keep some of your old photos for comparison. When you know how well you have turned out so far, you will want to go all the way. You will feel that it is quite possible for you to take further steps.
Go shopping. Buy clothes that fit your newly reworked body. You will be so happy about buying jeans that are two sizes smaller. You will feel you have achieved something special.
You have to understand something here – When you measure yourself at home and see that you have reduced, you are happy. But you become much happier when you reward yourself for it. When you buy smaller waist jeans you see the practical connotations of your fitness
program. You actually see the benefits. This is what motivates you to keep working on in the future. If you see these benefits and then begin rewarding yourself for it, you will see that you are able to push you toward better health and fitness achievements.
