Whether you’ve wanted to start on a new fitness journey, get back to the gym after a break or lose weight, you’re probably familiar with the struggle of trying to start the routine and perhaps not seeing the results you want as soon as you want them.
While this can be frustrating and for some people, enough of a reason to make them want to give up their fitness journey all together, it’s important to remember to take a step back and think about the key elements of fitness.
To be able to give yourself the best chance of sticking to a fitness plan and improving your fitness, you need to make sure you’ve got the following 3 things in place.
Keep reading to learn about the 3 puzzle pieces that create a successful fitness journey.
How you can reach your fitness goals
Fitness goals are different for everyone. For some people they want to lose weight. For others, they want to get stronger. And for many people, they just want to feel good.
While each of these goals will involve different and various exercise routines to help reach them, the exercise routine is only one of the three major puzzle pieces of the fitness journey.
These fitness journey puzzle pieces are universal – the nitty gritty details of each piece will be different for each person, but fundamentally the principles are the same.
So, if you want to improve your fitness and be able to successfully maintain your fitness plan, then here’s what you need to know.
Your diet matters
Diet is often considered to be a dirty word, but we’re not using it in the context of the myriad of diets that are touted as the best out there – in this context, we mean diet as in what you eat.
So before you jump on a keto, atkins, vegan, low carb, no carb diet bandwagon, the solution to a good diet for your fitness journey, is one that is balanced, providing you with enough energy to be able to not only survive your day to day life but fuels you to be able to exercise and still feel good.
Often, when people start a fitness journey, they go hard – whether it’s with their diet or exercise plans (or both), and often they create an eating plan that is just not realistic for them.
To be able to create a sustainable eating plan it’s a good idea to understand what your fitness goals are. If you’re trying to lose weight, then a calorie deficit is important, if you’re trying to bulk up and gain muscle, you may need to increase your protein intake.
Identifying your goals can help to guide your eating plan, but most importantly taking steps to eat a well-balanced diet that consists of whole foods like fruits and vegetables, as well as sources of protein like meat, fish and tofu or vegan alternatives, is going to be more sustainable in the long run.
Try not to restrict yourself or deprive yourself – it’s all about moderation.
A realistic training program
To build strength, lose weight or maintain fitness, you’re going to have to exercise in some form or another. And the way you exercise doesn’t have to be the same as anyone or everyone else.
It might involve cardio, weights, HIIT, dancing, swimming, pilates, yoga, walking, running, boxing. It might involve a combination of all of these. It might involve something else altogether. It doesn’t necessarily matter what it is exactly, what matters is that it’s something that is actually achievable for you to do.
And by achievable, we don’t mean that you have to be excellent at that type of exercise, we mean achievable in that you have the time, energy and drive to be able to do the exercise.
A big part of the exercise and fitness plan battle is that people end up putting together a training program that they despise doing or that takes too long for them to do, and they just can’t dedicate the time to it.
Now, we’re not saying that you’re going to love your exercise plan every time you do it, you will have off days for sure, but if you’re allowing yourself to try different kinds of exercise, you might just find a particular activity that you really enjoy which will fuel your fitness journey even more.
If you don’t know where to start with a fitness plan, you can always chat to a personal trainer – like the ones we have here at Rec Xpress. They can work with you to understand your goals and help you to develop a routine for you.
Sleep is one of your best friends
One of the most vital steps of any fitness journey is actually allowing yourself to rest.
Good old shuteye helps your body to rest, relax and recover, allowing you to be and to feel capable of exercising.
Your body needs sleep so that your muscles that you’re working hard on working out are repairing and building up after your workout.
Sleep also matters because it helps to conserve energy. The conservation of energy not only gives us enough energy to be able to exercise but also improves our muscle strength during workouts. When the body is not well rested and energised, fatigue can set in which can compromise the effectiveness and the form of an exercise.
So, make sure you’re giving yourself a fighting chance by getting enough sleep in.
Start your fitness journey with Rec Xpress
Fitness should be a journey – it doesn’t have to be a difficult one though. If you have these three elements down, your path to improved fitness will be a lot easier to navigate.
Whether you’re starting a fitness journey or looking to try something new, why don’t you come join us here at Rec Xpress at one of our six gym locations in Melbourne’s South East suburbs? We have a team of highly experienced and friendly staff who are ready to help you create the ideal fitness journey for you.
Find out more about our membership offers here.