If you aren’t exercising consistently, it doesn’t matter how great of a workout program you had planned because you simply didn’t do anything.
Consistency is the most important aspect
How do you stay consistent? Just do it, right?
That’s what we’re supposed to tell ourselves and that’s probably the most recognized company motto in the world. But obviously, things are a little more involved than that.
It’s hard to “just do it” when your boss asks you to stay late at work again.
It’s hard to “just do it” when you have to pick up your kids from daycare, go home to cook a meal for your family, or finally do yard work so your home doesn’t look like the African exhibit at the zoo (yes, I relate to that last one in particular).
It’s hard to “just do it” when you’re already exhausted from the day, mentally and physically, and the last thing you want to do is push yourself further because that’s just what you know you have to “do.”
There are a TON of things that compete for our time and more often than not, we put ourselves on the backburner because it’s much easier to let ourselves down than someone else.
Feeling hopeful yet?
It seems like there is a prevailing theme in the health and fitness industry.
That theme is if you want to lose weight, you have to completely change your lifestyle for a month by going to the gym 5 times a week and drink nothing but juice cleanses, or do the no carb thing, or no fat thing, or the no ‘pick your whatever’ diet that promises to help you lose weight and ride killer whales like the King or Queen of Atlantis.
As you’ve probably personally found out, such drastic changes aren’t sustainable. Even worse, whatever weight you lost on the special diet or workout routine can come right back in excess when you’ve finished your little healthy stint.
Your body didn’t know what the heck was going on and if it could talk it might possibly say something along the lines of “Oh man, ok we’re moving a lot more than we normally do! Muscles are being broken down at an alarming rate. Quick! Make us feel more hungry so we get enough material to heal the damage! Oh, ok, we aren’t eating as much as we normally do either, so where are we going to get the material to recover? Let’s take it from our muscles because we seem to be in a fight or flight mode and we need that protein and extra calories to keep our systems functioning normally.”
And then you go back to your normal lifestyle. Your body might sound something like this, “Calories! Sweet wonderful calories! We aren’t going to starve after all! Well, we don’t know that. Maybe we should hold on to these calories for the future because we seem to be in a stressful, potentially dangerous time. Let’s go ahead and load up on these beauties and store them as fat in all the wrong, unsightly places.”
Obviously, this is far from anything you might read in a scientific journal, but the point is that just because YOU know what your goal is does not mean YOUR BODY has a clue.
Your body will respond to whatever stress you throw at it. It will adapt to become stronger, more efficient, and tougher to kill. Special circumstances and complex diseases aside, your body is always working towards that end, keeping you alive. To do that it MUST adapt.
This is where consistency is important.
Before we get into that, do you actually know what your goal is? Is it yours or is it something you might have borrowed from a respected friend or perhaps you saw it in a magazine?
Why do you want to be consistent with exercise? Do you want to lose fat? Do you want to not get out of breath going up the stairs? Is it to play with your kids or grand kids on the floor and be able to get OFF the floor? Ask yourself ‘why’ you want to be consistent with exercise and do it as many times as you need to. Take your time to really think about the deeper goal. Once you have it, then you have a great source of motivation for when you don’t feel like getting up to workout. It’s now more powerful than just the surface level reasons.
Back to the consistency portion…
You don’t need a 1 hour long workout 3-6 times a week full of the latest methods, tech, and scientifically sound training principles to get the results you want. That kind of dedication certainly helps but it’s also pretty incredibly rare unless it’s your job.
Can you do 1 squat a day for a week?
Seriously. Do 1 squat, as perfect as you can make it, every day for a week.
Next week, your goal is 2 squats, then 3, then 4 and maybe now you can try adding an incline pushup against a chair.
When consistency is the goal, the barrier must be as low as it can possibly be made. It must be so low that you literally make it to where you cannot fail at doing this 1 thing. You have to be 100% confident that you can do this one thing, and then do it.
Here are a few great things about this approach:
1) The time commitment is practically nonexistent.
2) If you’ve been sedentary up till now, you will actually get stronger!
3) Racking up small wins, builds the confidence to go further.
- “Small wins have enormous power, an influence disproportionate to the accomplishments of the victories themselves. ‘small wins are a steady application of a small advantage,’ one Cornell professor wrote in 1984. ‘Once a small win has been accomplished, forces are set in motion that favor another small win.’ small wins fuel transformative changes by leveraging time advantages into patterns that convince people that bigger achievements are within reach.” – The Power of Habit
- “… common is the circumstance where small wins are scattered… like miniature experiments that test implicit theories about resistance and opportunity and uncover both resources and barriers that were invisible before the situation was stirred up.” – Karl Weick (organizational psychologist)
4) If you’re goal is 1 rep and any additional movements are considered bonus reps, you can easily get those reps! You not only achieved your goal, you knocked it out of the park!
On top of that, research shows that exercising even a small amount of willpower in one area of your life has the tendency to influence other parts of your life in a favorable way as well. For example, when researchers put participants on a money management program:
“… As people strengthened their willpower muscles in one part of their lives-in the gym, or a money management program-that strength spilled over into what they ate or how hard they worked. Once willpower became stronger, it touched everything.”
“… They ate less junk food and were more productive at work and school…”
– The Power of Habit
Once consistency is in place, you can focus on more effective fat burning workouts with or without a gym.
P.S. – Interested in getting some extra help with staying consistent? I help busy folks incorporate exercise into their lives through online training as well as 1-1 training sessions when needed. Fill out a Consultation Form and once I get a chance to review your responses, I will contact you to see if we would be a good fit. Want more info on how I train? Go HERE to learn more about the hybrid style of training I do. 100% online training is also a viable option if location is an issue. Whatever you choose to do with your health and fitness, don’t be afraid to start small. The most important thing is to start 🙂
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