This week we are continuing with the theme of how to get fitter, more energised and more confident and we are talking about what to do next now that you have you have set your smart goals, you have your schedule, you know what time you have free and you know what exercises you need to be doing to help you get fitter, more energised and more confident. And then this week I am going to give you that motivation, that gentle nudge in the right direction to start achieving you health, fitness and weight loss goals that you set right in the beginning. So this is part 4 of how get fitter, more energised and more confident at home and at work exercises.
You should have your schedule in front of you hopefully, you know what exercises you want to do and you feel ready to start and now all you have to do is take that first step. Read on to find out my tips on how to take the first step.
If you have decided that your goal is run a race or you want to get fitter and you are quite interested in doing some running then my first suggestion would be to enter a race. So if you are just starting off and you have never run before then I would say start with a 5k race, there are some very good Race for Life’s coming up this summer but it might be a little bit late in the day to enter those if you haven’t already started training.
There is also an event called Park Run which is a weekly free event every Saturday morning at certain locations all around the country. They always start at 9am on a Saturday morning. The nearest one I think to Loughborough is perhaps Conkers or there is one in Leicester as well. If you just go on the website which I think is parkrun.org.uk you can find out where your nearest park run is.
They are a great race as you have a lot of different abilities, you have beginners there that walk it, you have very fast runners there who try and beat their time every week. You can slot in in the middle as well. I would suggest trying one of those first of all. You can do that every week and see how your fitness improves.
Generally if you are trying to get fitter I would say enter a race, so that that is motivation for you. If you are not running you could enter a different race, a cycling race or a swimming gala or something like that. Or you could just set yourself your own target. You want to be able to do 10 press ups or you want to be able to keep going for a 30 minute fitness session without having to stop, that would be great, anything like that just make sure that you commit yourself now whatever your goal is. So if you are looking to the last one of those you might want to talk to a fitness instructor or a personal trainer or commit yourself by telling your friend you are going to do it. Also start joining that class or session every week now so that you can see your progress improve and you get fitter along the way.
If you are looking to lose weight you might want to join a weight loss club, something like Slimming World, I am not a big fan of weight loss slimming clubs as such but it is a good motivation as you get that weigh in every week and it keeps you on track but you could obviously do this with a personal trainer or you could even do it at work if a group of you want to achieve similar goals. It is just a great way of doing it in a group to keep you focused.
Make sure you take that first step and tell someone about your goal so that they can keep you accountable. You want that person to be someone you trust but also someone that won’t let you off the hook if you decide I don’t want to do this anymore I am just going to eat some biscuits and not bother, it’s just too much hard work. You want that person to be quite strict on you and to make sure you stick with those goals until you achieve them. That is where a personal trainer will come in handy as they want to encourage you all the way.
Once you have committed to it, you have entered a race, you have set yourself a target and you have your goal and you are accountable to someone or a few different people about it, then you just need to take that first step, start doing what you said you are going to do – whether that is running, going to the gym, whatever it is you actually just start it now, no questions asked, just do it, have a go, then you just need to be consistent and keep doing what you said you were going to do.
If it’s hard work that is absolutely normal. You need to just keep putting in that hard work and keep repeating what you are doing, so you can’t expect to achieve all your goals within the first session or the first week or anything like that. You need to be doing it consistently for 4-6 weeks perhaps to start seeing some significant results. So make sure that you keep doing what you have said you are going to do and we will check in with you next week to make sure you are on target. So your homework for this week is to take that first step and I want to see that you have done the first step and repeated the action several times before I see you again!