How to Start Your Fitness Journey
Deciding to start your fitness journey is a great step but knowing how to start this journey is another step. As a beginner, you don’t know a lot about fitness, and you might not be very sure of what you really need to get started. Therefore, you might end up quitting very soon even before the results start showing.
Many people turn to the internet to learn how to get started in the fitness journey. The fact is there is plenty of information out there which can be confusing. Some information that you will come across might not even helpful. You don’t want to find yourself in that kind of situation.
Starting your fitness should not be done blindly either. You need to think through your decision and eventually take well-informed action. By that, I mean that you need to create a fitness plan that will guide you in your journey.
Starting a fitness journey is similar to starting a new business. Without a good plan, you don’t know your goals or mission and vision and what you are supposed to do. Without a fitness plan, you don’t even know your fitness goals and the exercises you need to do. So, you might end up performing the wrong forms of exercises, harm yourself, lose motivation and within no time end up quitting. In this blog, you will learn how to start your fitness journey and maintain your motivation. Keep reading to discover more.
Here’s how to start your fitness journey
1. Have the right mindset
There is a good reason why we have this as our first point. Before you can even start doing anything, you need to have the right mindset that you will achieve whatever you put your focus on. In this journey, you will come across people who are in the advanced stages of fitness, with well-toned bodies and spend hours in the gym without tiring quickly.
As a beginner, it’s easier to start comparing yourself with such people so much that you even doubt if you will get to their level. That’s not the way to do things. Don’t ever compare yourself with anyone. You’re just a beginner, why the hurry.
What you need to do right now is start working on yourself believing that you will achieve your fitness goals.
If you start criticizing your body because you cannot do the heavy lifting that the next person can do, you will only be feeding negative thoughts to your mind and eventually, you will lack the energy and motivation to keep on keeping on.
Start by embracing your body, and start working on it. Accept that this journey will not be easy especially in the beginning. Accept that there is a lot of work to be done and a lot of effort to be put in from your side.
Always fight off the negatives thoughts that tend to drain your energy. Keep your eyes on the goals and believe that you will get there.
2. Have realistic goals
As aforementioned, you need to have fitness goals before starting your fitness journey. You don’t want to set out on a journey without having a destination in mind. When we are talking about fitness goals, we mean realistic goals, measurable and achievable ones.
There must be something that has inspired you to start this healthy journey. It could be you want to get in shape, lose weight or build muscle or maybe you just want to feel good about yourself. In fitness, you’re not restricted to have one goal, you can have as many as you want.
The best thing about health and fitness journeys, as you keep progressing your goals will keep changing. This shows that you’re making some good progress and you want you to keep challenging yourself even more.
As a beginner, identify what you want to achieve and make sure they are realistic. Your goals will help you determine the type of exercises that can help you achieve them. Additionally, these goals will guide your choice of diet. For instance, if you want to lose several pounds within a particular period, you will know the kind of diet to adopt and the kind of exercise to do.
Can you see how important goals are?
I would recommend you to start with small goals that can be achieved within a day, for example running five miles. Proceed to set larger goals. Every time you achieve a particular goal you will feel motivated to take on a more challenge goal. After all, that’s how progress is made.
3. Come up with a workout plan
Now when you’re starting a business, you will need a business plan. When you’re starting your fitness journey, you will need a workout plan.
In this plan, you will include your goals, the kind of exercises to perform, the appropriate diet and so on. Generally, the workout plan must be aligned with your fitness goals. It must clearly outline the kind of exercises that you should do in the gym and the duration and frequency of working out.
Those who don’t have a workout plan, do not have direction in their fitness journey. They get to the gym and start lifting whatever it is they come across. They hop from one exercise to another and they don’t even know whether or not it is the right exercise for them.
A workout plan is a must-have it the fitness journey. When creating one, you need to be honest with yourself so that you can create something that you can live with. You might want to work together with your personal fitness trainer to create a workout plan that will help you achieve your goals and maintain your fitness journey.
4. Come up with a meal plan
In the fitness journey, a meal plan comes in handy. You cannot claim to be in a health and fitness program simply because you are working out, but you’re not mindful of what you are eating. Workouts and being mindful of what you are eating must go hand in hand.
That’s why you need to create a meal plan that includes healthy diets showing the number of calories that should be present in your diet. This meal plan should be devoid of unhealthy foods, specifically the fast foods which only do more harm to you than good.
The kind of diet you eat should give you the energy you need to go about your activities and your workouts as well. Your meal should always be a balanced diet with proteins, carbohydrates vitamins. This ensures that you’re getting the nourishment that you need and you’re healthy.
Many people tend to get stuck with unhealthy foods which are usually sugary, with too much salt and are easy to prepare. In the fitness journey, the kind of foods must be replaced with healthier alternatives.
Talking about having a meal plan, you will also need to track your calorie intake. Tracking your calorie intake is now easier than ever given the many fitness apps that are available on the market right now. You can track just about anything in your diet. So, you might consider getting a fitness app to track your calorie intake.
5. Keep updating your workouts
In the fitness journey, you need to keep updating your workouts. You don’t want to keep performing the same exercise every time you get to the gym. Doing the same exercises every day without doing other forms of exercise will not yield more results. Your body will only get used to it.
Therefore, you need to perform a variety of different workouts to keep your body challenged yielding more results. When you’re just starting, you might want to start with a specific workout routine and then update it after every one or two weeks.
6. Track your workouts
Every fitness enthusiast knows the importance of tracking their workouts. You need to write down everything you were able to accomplish on a particular day during your workout. Records anything from the amount of weight you were able to lift, to your heart rate during a cardio session and the number of miles you ran.
Conclusion
There you have it! Now you know how to start your fitness journey. You need to have the right mindset, set your fitness goals and believe that you can achieve them, create a workout and meal plan to guide your daily workouts and diet, upgrade your workouts by having a variety of exercises and finally track your workouts. These tips will guide you on your fitness journey.
Recent Comments