Are you ready to change your lifestyle??

So you’ve decided that this is the year, month, week, day, moment that you are going to commit to living a healthier lifestyle! AWESOME! CONGRATS! BRAVO!! But are you ready???  So many times I’ve  heard people say “yes I’m seriously going to get in shape starting today” or “I am sooo over eating out” or “I am going to start going to yoga on a regular basis starting today” or “I’m going to the gym everyday, no matter what!” and then 2 weeks later they are back to their old ways of no exercise and unhealthy eating.  Why is that??  Well there are many reasons but I believe the real reasons are you AREN’T READY TO CHANGE or you LACK MOTIVATION and DISCIPLINE or you expect IMMEDIATE RESULTS.  You need to be honest with yourself, what’s worked or hasn’t worked before?  As my dad always tells me “past behaviour is the best predictor of present/future behaviour”.  Before you begin your journey to improving your fitness and health from where it is now take a few minutes to complete these quizzes/questionnaires…

Click on this link to complete a quick quiz….

Or answer this questionnaire to calculate your “readiness to change” score….no cheating!

So what did you notice?? Are you surprised with the results?? Probably not right?

If you are one of those people who is on the fence or maybe you’re totally apprehensive about the process THAT IS COMPLETELY NORMAL! The hard part is overcoming the doubts and making the decision to TAKE ACTION to improve your lifestyle.

I’ve been following Tim’s blog called “Minimalist Workout” where he writes about ways to minimize workouts for maximum effect (awesome concept right?) and I asked his permission to repost his blog from a couple days ago.  It’s called the 7 Point Plan to Fitness Success. I couldn’t have said it better myself 🙂 so thanks Tim!   Here it is…

I’ve been reading a lot about motivation lately. It seems every fitness website and blog has a simple plan to become more motivated. The problem is, most don’t address the real reasons you are lacking in motivation. Most people aren’t simply lazy but they lack motivation for many reasons. Most of the reasons, I am finding, come down to reward and discipline.

In your life you learn by trial and error. If you try to walk through a wall and bump your head then you wont walk into the wall again. When you see someone walk through a door you’ll realize you can get to the other side of the wall by going through the door.

The same is true with exercise. If you attempt to run a marathon when you’re out of shape you will fail after about a minute. This would make a couch potato out of anyone. If you run 1 minute intervals with periods of walking for 20 minutes as instructed in couch to 5k then you’ll be rewarded with the satisfaction of a job well done and confidence in yourself. Below is my seven point by step plan to reaching your goals.

Data Collecting Phase – Spend a week logging your bad habits. Don’t attempt to change any of them at this time.
Recognition Phase – During this phase you will recognize where your problem areas are. Consider this your project to work on. If you watch TV all day and never get up then say “when I get up to use the restroom (or go to the kitchen) I will do a couple reps”. Pretend you’re a lawyer and find some loopholes in your routine and bad habits.
Social Phase – State your intentions verbally to your friends and family. You will then commit yourself and inspire others. Inspiring others is like a stock that pays dividends.
Trial Phase – See how many push ups, sit ups and squats you can do. If you can do 1 that is fine. If you can’t do floor push ups then do wall push ups. Take the next couple of days off.
Journal Phase – Start a journal. A blog is a great way to journal or just buy a notebook. You’re going to log your exercises so you can track your success.
Action Phase – Do 50% of your max reps per set every time you go to the rest room or kitchen. If you were able to do 10 push ups then do 5 per set but shoot for 3 or more sets. Do one of the workouts (push ups, sit ups, squats) per day. Drink plenty of water and eat something with protein.
Success Phase – Pat yourself on the back. You’re working out. Do this every day, tell your friends how well you’re doing and they will celebrate with you.

I love the steps he has come up with and find that they work best for fitness and nutrition goals.  So if you’re struggling to get started on your path to a healthier lifestyle start with Step 1: Start logging all your bad habits for a week…then once you can identify what they are you can begin to break them down and work on 1 at a time.  Don’t overwhelm yourself and try to ‘fix’ or ‘correct’ everything at once, or you’ll become overwhelmed and most likely give up or quit before you even begin.

And some thoughts to leave you with today…

 And…

Les 🙂