Ok so we’ve once again hit that time when everyone digs out their gym kit and sets off on their “New me” January fitness crusade but how long will everyone last this year? I mean let’s be honest here, is your resolution the same as it was last year? Or are you a stage ahead from where you were last year? People dive in to all sorts of gym classes, start their exercise at inappropriate levels of intensity and literally do one of two things with their food intake: 1. Either cut calories to a starvation level or 2. Unbalance their diet by eradicating the devils that they believe to be Carbs & Fat!

Most of us have been here before, we start with intent and yet by mid to late January, we’re back to where we started if we’re lucky or more commonly we’re in an even worse position. We become deflated by a lack of progress, Injured by poor training programs or ill due to incorrect body fuelling. So how do you counteract this so that you actually begin to see progression and keep moving forward throughout the year? Below is a blueprint for your 2019 New You!

1. Don’t dive in! Be honest, set yourself a clear target. If it’s to lose fat get an accurate calculation of how much you want/need to lose and have an appropriate fitness & food plan devised by a specialist. If it’s to get fitter, undergo a fitness test so you know where you are starting from. If it’s to drop a dress size take a photo of yourself in your dress to see how it fits right now,  you then have something to refer back to yourself. If it’s golf related don’t set out with a “Get fit for golf” mindset, break it down to an area of focus, such as: Mobility, Flexibility, Core, Strength or Power and get a screening and target your weakness or limitation with a T.P.I specialist.

 2. Track your own progression. For Fat Loss forget about your scales, use body fat testing and measurements. For Fitness, repeat your initial fitness test and for dress sizing, take the same photo in the same dress.  For Golf, simply re-screen. The take home message here is to chart your progress, it helps with motivation and flags up training plateaus early.

 3. Whether your effort is channelled into your training plan, your diet or P.T sessions, work with qualified people with proven track records in assisting people to reach their fitness goals. Be clear from the outset in what you are looking to achieve and ensure that your progress is charted at regular intervals. Then seek the guidance from the professionals that you enlist for help to guide you along the way, it’s not the one hour a day that you spend in the gym that will make or break your goals, you will have to buy into the correct procedures to follow daily in order to attain your goal, certainly within the realms of Fat Loss, you will never out exercise a poor diet.

4. Rome isn’t built in a day or a week or a month so don’t make this a January resolution, make it a lifestyle change. 

 Of course you should be looking to gain results as quickly as possible but it doesn’t always come as quickly as you’d like, depending on what your goal is. I once worked with an individual who wanted to lose 50kg, now he was doomed to failure if he’d have wanted to do that in January and so we broke it down into 5kg targets, come February he was over 5kg into his target. It took Brad 12 months to shift that weight but he did it!

 There were 2 ways to look at things in February for Brad: 1. Damn it another 45kg to lose, forget it! Or 2. Cool that’s 5kg gone, onto the next 5! Sure Brad had a few blips along the way but the key is, If you do fall off the wagon, (And many of us do at some point), then get straight back on the next day rather than letting that fall crush you into submission.

 So with your fitness targets whatever they may be, use the 21/90 formula, really 12 weeks will give you a much better chance of success and do wonders for your health at the same time. It will be so much more productive than the standard January health kick!  Form your new habits in the first 3 weeks of January and then let them redefine you up to the end of March. At this point, if you still have the selfie that you took of yourself in January as per point 2 in this article, now is a good time to refer back to it and see if you’d like to trade the New you for the Old you! If you’ve followed this blueprint, then I doubt you will!

Whatever you decide your target for January is, don’t fall for all the shortcuts that you see pumped around this industry:

1. The Fad diets         2. The Miracle pills        3. The latest fitness craze

                                                                Because if there is one thing that I can guarantee, there are:

And this is where most of my work is done now, I built my own fitness studio last year and kitted it out with everything that I need to help my clients to smash through their goals. Fat-loss, Toning, Strength, Power,  Speed, Tennis, Golf, Boxing, Injury Rehab & Athletic Development in Juniors. If any of require extra help then please get in touch. Happy New Year. MW

Just click on the question mark if the image doesn’t appear.