Thank you so much for joining this challenge. I want to take some time to go over some things that you may experience if this is your first time embarking on a fitness journey. You may have been down a fitness journey in the past and did well and are starting over because…well life happened. Either way, I am happy you are here and I pray that this journey is a positive one! I am honored to be a part of this journey and I don’t take it for granted.
Get Ya Mind Right!
The hardest part about a fitness journey is our expectations. We begin working out and eating semi healthy. We are eager, excited, and looking forward to seeing some changes. In our minds, the workouts with a sprinkle of healthier meals should surely do the trick. We step on the scale and see that the number dropped, but only by a couple pounds. Forget it all! We instantly get discouraged and give up because we expected to lose 10 pounds by now. Sis, its been 6 days. Give yourself some grace.
Our bodies are a work of art and designed by God. It’s an extremely complex machine. It will take time for our bodies to adjust to the new things that we have implemented. We have to get our expectations of what is to come in order. This will help to make the experience much more positive.
Our bodies will not drop the pounds until our bodies realize that we are serious about the changes that we are making. Consistency is key here. We have to consistently eat healthy AND consistently be active to see true results. Spoiler Alert: once you start seeing results, you can not stop what you did to get there.
Plan. Prepare. Take Action!
To be successful with this fitness journey (really anything you want to do well with in life) you have to have a plan. We all know that to see weight loss results, toning or muscle increase we have to feed our bodies foods that are good for us and we have to be active. Depending on your goals, that activity will be different. It could be cardio based, could be weight training, it could be a combination of the two. Whichever it is for you, its going to require planning. What meals am I going to eat this week? When does my schedule allow time for me to go grocery shopping? When does my schedule allow time for me to cook these meals? What will my meals consist of? I don’t like broccoli so what can I substitute that for? These are the things we have to think about.
At the start of each week I look at my calendar and schedule and check to see when I will have time to grocery shop, recipes I want to try, foods I need to purchase, days I can cook my meals and days I can work out and be active. I cook my meals in bulk, a few days at a time. I find this makes eating healthy easier for me. So when I’m in a time crunch and find myself hungry, I can just head to the fridge and grab my meal, pop it in the microwave and I’m good! This SAVED me at the start of my fitness journey. Now it is a habit for me.
We have all heard the saying, “Fail to plan, plan to fail.” And it remains true. The minute your stomach grumbles and there are no healthy meals available, we tend to grab the quickest thing on our way home, and its usually not the healthiest and then we feel guilty for doing so. Have a plan for the week. Know what your schedule looks like and prepare accordingly to avoid that guilty feeling. Take action! Purchase those colorful veggies, that beautiful fruit, those lean meats and make some delicious meals. Check your schedule for the days we workout, and days you might be able to do your own thing, like a walk outside, some invisible jump ropes, run on treadmill or some of the HIIT workouts I may send out ?. Whatever it may be, take action. And watch the results follow!
Be Patient
None of this is easy at the start. We may have all the right intentions starting off. We may do everything right. Prepare our meals, make time for the workouts, stay positive and motivated and still slip up. It is totally normal to do that and its ok. Don’t beat yourself up about it. Cravings for the foods we love and aren’t necessarily the best to help us reach a goal, don’t just go away because we suddenly decided we want to be snatched this summer. Acknowledge your slip. Assess why it occurred. Be mindful of it and aware that it could happen again. And when the slip up rears its ugly head again, acknowledge it, and conquer it the next time. This will not be easy at first, so be patient with yourself and the process.
This won’t be easy at the start. But the journey is so worth it! Trust the process and try to enjoy at the same time! We have goals to crush…so let’s get it!! ??????
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