From personal experience in my Personal Training career so far I’ve found that a lot of people coming in for a consultation have a pre conception of what fitness is. People often think it’s about living in the gym 6 days a week and eating the same boring dry foods out of plastic pots whilst spending 7 hours in the kitchen everyday.
Like don’t get me wrong people do do this but that’s the beauty in fitness, there are so many ways to tackle getting into shape so don’t be fooled into thinking you need to kiss goodbye to your social life. How cool would it be to get in shape whilst maintaining a social life?
I’ll give you a shit sandwich approach with this Blog….
- YES you need to devote time and dedication to getting into shape
- NO you don’t have to let it take over your life
- YES you can get results whilst living a ‘normal life’
I always recommend that in a hard gaining or losing weight phase that you need to be strict. Once at a target goal or weight then you can train for maintenance which is a bit easier to manage.
Where do you start?
First off understand that you need to find your ‘sweet spot’ with food and nutrition. I would start by improving your week days and then ease off or treat yourself on the weekends, this is good because you learn the basics but don’t let it overwhelm your whole week meaning it’ll be a HUGE improvement but not something that scares you off after week 1.
Secondly I’d start by training a few times a week just purely because your body will ache a huge amount as you’ll be working muscles you haven’t before. No good going all guns blazing if you injure yourself on week 1.
Finish off by ENJOYING IT! Make small steps and appreciate and credit yourself for making a positive change. Rome wasn’t built in a day so don’t get caught up in comparing yourself to everyone around you that’s been training for years. Just do you.
Mindset towards Fitness…
The sooner you can look at fitness as something that’s fun or an outlet or stress reliever then you’ll see value in going consistently and it won’t be such a chore. I know at the start people really start to struggle because it’s very overwhelming learning about training and nutrition but as mentioned above just take small steps and stick to the basics.
Matt x
