5 Things to Note Before Starting Your Fitness Journey
In my last post, I mentioned that I would be recounting my latest fitness journey. Well, you can count this as the beginning of that story.
Before I can get into any of the details, I think it’s especially important for me to make a few initial point. While this information may seem irrelevant now, it will help explain some of the reasoning behind the decisions I made.
1. You have to want it.
Nobody can do this for you. Nobody can take you on this journey and do all the work. Eventually, no matter who is helping you, you’re going to find out the truth that is the need for self-motivation. I’m not here to say that having someone go to the gym with you is a bad idea, or that working out with a friend/significant other is inevitably going to fail, but the end-motivation has to come from you.
In those moments when you’re up to the wall with your bad habits, trying to force the last bits of them out of your personality, you need to be the one to make the final push. Why?
Because you are powerful. And by having others do it for you robs you of the chance to realize you are in complete control of your body, mind, and mental state.
Remember the goal: Sustainability.
By finding and tapping into your own self-control and willpower, achieving the ultimate sustainability goal is possible. Difficult, but still within reach.
2. Progress is not linear.
There’s this idea that we get on a wellness plan, cut out the crap in our lives and then our bodies take a straight line down towards our weight. In theory, that’s how it should work, but in practice the human body and psyche are much different. We have cravings, parties, periods of stress, and other important things that get in the way of a linear goal. That’s not to say these things are inherently bad, but in terms of just fitness, they don’t always help.(In terms of overall wellness, they’re actually fantastic!)
The reality is that there’s a 3–5 pound range that we fluctuate in, so it’s hard to tell in the short run if progress is being made. Looking back at my daily weights for the week, it’s gone as high as 167.2 and as low as 162.2. The higher of which occurred after a late night snack session (still within macros and calories), and the lower occurred after a late night out dancing/partying with friends resulting in some dehydration. Somewhere between those two numbers is my actual weight, but it doesn’t really matter. What you should look for are general trends of bodyweight, eating, and exercise.
3. It’s going to take time.
From actually deciding to make a change to now, it’s been seven months. I didn’t just see progress at day one. The idea here is to make a lifestyle change, stick with it, and then wake up one day a few months later and see some progress. While the graph above only shows the last 6 months, I attempted to make changes long before then. It took up until March to actually start dialing them in every day, and until September to see the long term results.
Slow progress isn’t probably what you wanted to hear, but it’s the only way these results stick around. There’s a statistic floating around of something like “1 in 6 people fail to maintain their weight-loss”, and in some part it’s true. Many people, myself included tend to float back to our original weights. What the statistic doesn’t concede to is the fact that most people studied don’t usually change their lifestyles in the long term, just for a month or so. To actually make this stick, the change has to become cemented in daily activities. The more a new habit is performed and repeated, the more likely it is to stay.
So be patient.
4. Love Yourself Now.
It’s really common for people (myself included) to think something along the lines of:
“I’ll be happy about my body when I’ve lost 20 pounds” or “I’ll get my confidence back when I’m back to my goal weight”.
This is absolutely backwards.
The reality is that success comes from being confident in yourself and your body now. Not later. Not when you look your best. Not when you have those abs you’ve always wanted. Confidence is a key part of doing anything well, not just fitness. By refusing to be confident in your current state, no matter what your current shape or goals are, it inevitably undermines the ability to make meaningful progress.
I get it, I’ve been there. I’ve been dissatisfied with how I look in the mirror. I’ve wished and wished and wished for it all to just disappear and be over tomorrow. But, each time I’ve been successful in an effort to improve my health, it’s been because I’ve owned who I am and decided that the way my body looks has nothing to do with what I’m capable of.
Take a moment every day and just smile in the mirror. Remind yourself how awesome you are. Hell, take a selfie of it and save it for when you need a pick-me-up.
5. Find Enjoyment In It.
There’s honestly no point to all this unless you enjoy it. I lift weights because I love how confident I am afterwards. I ride my bike because of the sense of euphoric adventure that comes with being miles from home, exploring the world around me. I enjoy cooking because I love the taste of the food I make. I wouldn’t do any of this if I didn’t actually love what I was doing.
This isn’t to say that there aren’t some mornings that you’ll wake up and want to do anything but cook breakfast. Or that there won’t be afternoons after school/work when working out is literally the last thing you want to do. By finding enjoyment, it becomes easier to pull yourself out of the ruts and back into a positive headspace.
With that being said…
Remember, wellness is individual. Everyone has their own recipe for success. Just because this is how I managed to get in the best shape of my life doesn’t mean that there’s another method that also works. At the end of the day you have to know your body, understand what its telling you, and act accordingly.
We’re all in this together. It doesn’t matter how we got there, just that we did.
