Fitness Resolutions

12/30/2013

It is common to set a New Year resolution that will help improve your levels of health and fitness. It is also common to see it crumble in February. The biggest reason why we struggle to stick to our resolutions is because we don’t actually set ourselves realistic targets and tend to give up.

Here are some tips that can help you get another step close to your fitness goal...

Be Specific – You’re setting a resolution to ‘lose weight’ or ‘tone up’ - what does that mean to you? You’d need to figure out how you will measure this, how and when you will do it and over what period of time? Is it enough? Most goals people set are not achievable over the short period of time they give themselves, and through very little work due to time constraints. The best way is to make a plan that is reasonable and realistic.

Be Active – Make every part of your day as active as you can.  Take the stairs, walk up the escalators, if you can walk there,ditch the car or use a bike.

Fruit and Vegetables - Try not to leave the house without having at least one portion of fruit or veg per day. They are packed with vitamins and minerals. They can also be good to replace snacks with.

Body Awareness – Body awareness should be something people should always be in tact with and not just during fitness classes. Try and scan your body on a regular basis throughout the day – are you sitting with hunched and tight shoulders, jaw clenched, crossed limbs and stomach hanging out? Posture is an important key to looking and feeling great.  By standing or sitting tall with the back straight, shoulders relaxed, stomach tensed and limbs uncrossed, you will instantly look and feel taller and slimmer.

Find Balance – It’s tempting to stick to one form of exercise that you enjoy doing.  In time you may get bored of that too so it’s important to have a balance of various activities in your fitness regime from strength work such as weights, to cardio such as Zumba, flexibility like Yoga and aerobic exercise.This will ensure to work out your neglected areas and reduce the risk of injury.

Make Effort – You must put effort into your regime but the idea here is not to be so intense. Enjoy a challenging session one day and a low intensity workout the next. Mix it up by applying the hard-easy rule.

Learn – And finally, learn something new. Don’t stick with the same routine each day of each month. See what else the fitness world has to offer. Try taking tennis lessons at the local club, a course of Yoga or Pilates at the gym, go on guided walks and bike rides in different areas and promise yourself to learn a new activity-related skill.

Make your New Year resolution fun enough to forget it was a resolution in the first place.