The aim of this mini-blog is not to shame people who claim they haven’t got time to go to the gym, but in fact it is to help them. We all have a friend or family member who has said this before. So, what can we actually do to help them?
Although it is true that we can always make time for things that are important to us, (and what is more important that improving the quality of your life through working on your health and well-being?), it can be easy to neglect this, due to the day-to-day nature of life.
Essentially, if we fast-forward for a second, the eventual aim is to get to a place eventually where exercising and looking after your health becomes a healthy habit. Something that you don’t even need to think about. Doing a session in the gym every week becomes as normal and regular as brushing your teeth. You don’t think about it. You just do it because it is a habit, and part of your routine.
There will be so called ‘experts’ on line telling you to train every day, and do eat chicken and broccoli every day to get to your ideal physique. The reality is, that for 99.9% of people this is unsustainable, and also not even what most people really want unless you want to get on stage for a bodybuilding competition. (Also note, that when bodybuilders are on stage, they are feeling in their worst condition due to a huge calorie deficit and dehydration)
It isn’t the most glamorous life, and most people just want to get fit, look better, and feel healthy. To achieve this you need consistency and sustainability in your training, general activity levels, and your nutrition.
This doesn’t need to be smashing a gym session every day. Think of the busy parent with kids, and a stressful job! What this person needs to find is a schedule where they can manage and arrange a little bit of time to train and to go on walks, and to make smart nutrition choices. The key is to START SMALL! Look at where your at currently, and try to get 1% better. Once this has been sustained for a couple of weeks, try another 1%.
Sit back for a second, and measure where your currently at. Look at 3 things to start off. Your daily steps, whether or not you are doing any basic strength training, and what your nutrition looks like. If your daily average step count is 3000 steps, aim for 5000 for the next couple of weeks and try to maintain it until it becomes a habit! It doesn’t sound like much, but accumatively it adds up massively! And the truth is, there will be days where you only do 2000 because your ill, or something important at work has come up. And that’s okay! The key thing is to not give up at that point. Keep perspective and move forward and make sure that hiccup doesn’t become a bad habit. There’s always going to be obstacles and set-backs along the way, such is the nature of life. If you aren’t doing any strength training, try to arrange doing it once per week for even 30mins to begin with! Contact an professional if you don’t know where to start. Investing a little time and money into knowing how to train will have an immeasurable positive impact on your life. With nutrition, cut down a little on the ‘treats’. You don’t have to eat like a monk to get into great shape. Try the 80/20 rule. And on the 20% just don’t go completely daft! If you go out for a meal with friends, get stuck in! But just make sure the day-to-day is good, home-cooked food!
As mentioned above, there will be set-backs along the way. There will be periods in your life where thing become chaotic! Just try to maintain a little order amongst that chaos! I remember starting up MSC, and the first few years included regular 16 hour days, and a lot of the time my energy was low and I was exhausted. Training became a bit of a chore for a while to be honest. The important thing I did was to at least make sure I was getting a minimum does of training in. Where as before, I was training 4 or 5 times a week at least, for a while I had to cut down to 1 or 2 a week. This pretty much maintained me, and although I definitely wasn’t in my peak physical condition, I did enough to keep going whilst other areas of my life took over. Whether it’s a new job, or kids, or a move in location, sometimes training won’t be at the forefront of your mind or priorities, and that’s okay! Just readjust your schedule, so that you can maintain a small amount of training in it, and a reasonable step count, even if it’s not optimal. When things get a bit more normal again, then you slowly bring it back to where you were before!
Hope that helps.
As always, if there’s anything we can help with, don’t hesitate to contact us.
Cheers,
Mark.