How to start your fitness journey- Setting your Foundation Straight

Thinking about starting your fitness journey but stuck with, “where” and “how”.

This is one of the first questions that hits your mind and reasonably so. Starting any journey can be nerve-racking and fitness, as in this case, is no exception. But if you have enough hands-on information and preparedness, you can turn it into a roller coaster ride.

Goals are tricky. No doubt, they are always well-intentioned but sometimes, for some people, they create a gap between who they are and who they actually want to be. Not reaching your goals can prove detrimental to the self-worth of people. Research shows that a lot of people do pretty well, in the beginning, to reach to their goal but soon they start backsliding.

Source: Using the Four Pillars of Habits to Start Your Fitness Journey

You must have heard that “if you don’t know where you are going, you will probably end up somewhere else”. The same goes for your fitness goals. If you aim to achieve nothing, then you will be only served with disappointment. That’s why it is imperative to set your fitness goal before deciding to embark on this journey.

It’s time to say goodbye to procrastination because if you are intent on taking yourself seriously, then start implementing the action plan. However, it’s important for you to take informed actions because if you take blind actions, you might end up failing and doing more harm than good.

If you are thinking about the ‘how’ behind this logic, then it’s simple. For instance, you start a small-scale business but didn’t do enough planning on how to reach out to your customers, then be ready for your start-up to go down the drain.

Similarly, if you have started following a diet routine, but do not know the portions that you must take in a day, then you will eventually end up harming your health. So, this explains pretty well that why uninformed actions can do more damage.

Speaking of which, what’s your plan to get started? To help you take the right steps, we have come up with some of the things that you must know or do before working out on your fitness.

5 Things You Must Know Before Starting Your Fitness Journey

1- Do the maths

We understand how much you hate numbers but for the weight loss or weight maintenance goal, you have to rely on them. The fats that you so desperately want to get rid of, are nothing but stored energy and so are the calories in your food, nothing but units of energy.

If the calories you consume are more than the calories your body burns as a result of any physical activity, then this extra energy will get stored in the form of fats. This means you must lose more calories in order to lose weight effectively. Same like that, if you want to maintain your weight, then consume an equal number of calories your body is burning in a day.

You don’t need to get confused here because it tells you about rule number one, that you must have a meal plan in place. You must know how many calories you are eating in a day. For this purpose, all you need to do is to calculate the calories you intake and do the plus-minus according to your requirement.

Calories count for weight loss is different for men and women. Women must consume no more than 1500 calories to lose 1 pound per week whereas men must eat only 2100 calories per day to lose 1 pound weight in a week. However, the calorie count differs and depends largely on age, gender, and height.

Source: How Many Calories Should You Eat per Day to Lose Weight?

2- Food quality matters more than you reckon

The quality of food you consume plays a major role in determining the number of calories you burn. Consumption of genetically modified and refined food damages the production of fat-burning hormones and the chemicals present in them can harm your immune system. To simplify, carbs and gluten are not the only culprits you may want to blame. It’s about the science behind the food you are eating. List out all the fake fats and sugars you have been devouring and replace them with whole foods. Starting eating clean must be rule number two of your fitness goals.

3- Choose your workout mode

Sweating frantically for hours in the gym is not your answer to lose those stubborn love handles or belly fat. Yes, you don’t have to turn into a gym bunny to achieve your goal but you do need to exercise for at least 3-4 days a week.

For a beginner, 20-30 minutes of exercise will suffice. Choose a workout of your choice; it can be yoga, Pilates, cardio or aerobics, or you can do them in combination on different days. Choose whatever interests you and just be consistent because the only thing that can take you far is ‘consistency’. So, rule number three is to select a workout you can stick to with consistency.

Head straight to Xn8 Sports to shop some exquisite fitness equipment that can help you stride toward your goals smoothly.

4- Balance is essential

For most of the beginners, the concept of balance is essential to understand because they believe they have to do everything to get their desired results. To make things worse, it is generally believed that everything must have to be done to the nth. But this is not how things work because you will only end up exhausting yourself.

Balance is the key to keep yourself motivated, so prepare your mind by making a general rule of 80/20. This means you are eating 80% of clean food but at the same allowing your body to enjoy 20% of calories coming from your favourite treat. This sure is a healthy way to treat your body. So, mark your fourth rule as ‘balance’.

5- Find yourself a fitness buddy

It is obvious that whatever ventures you may start, you need a partner to boost your morale. A support system is all you need to keep going forward because most of people abandon their fitness regimen due to the absence of support. You can ask your best buddy, your colleague, or anyone you may know who wants to work on his/her fitness. In this way, you can keep yourself on track and can go long miles together. Plus, when you know that someone is counting on you to continue this regime, you don’t want to give up so easily. Therefore, rule number five is finding a fitness buddy to keep your game strong.

Five Tips That Trainers Want You to Follow

Some people think that they can only get in shape if they hire a personal trainer. It’s true that a fitness guru can help you sail smoothly on your fitness journey but with the right plan and tips, you can be your own guru. If you are seriously considering making lifestyle changes and need insight from experts, then keep reading this blog.

Here are the top five tips that personal trainers want you to know if you have started your fitness regime on your own.

1-Stay committed to your goal no matter what

Commitment to your cause is the starting point of any venture and it all depends on you if you really want to make this commitment. You need to understand that down the road, you will encounter many unexpected things and if you are not fully up for your goal, you will fail eventually. That’s why you have to tell yourself that no matter how hard the situation gets, you WILL get to the top. Basically, as we said earlier, it’s about finding a balance that can keep you motivated and you will find it if you stay committed to your goal.

2- Use visuals to help you uplift your mood

Visuals sure do help you keep going on the days when you want to give up. Get yourself a board and create your vision on it, which you truly want to bring life to. Add pictures and cuttings from your favourite fitness magazines and let your wildest dream echo. And you don’t need to restrict yourself only by pasting pictures of your ideal body types, but you can paste pictures of your dream car, house, or motivational quotes that can snap you out of a bad day. Put this board in the place where you can see it every day to renew your commitment.

3- Think big but start small

You should think big to reach your goals but it’s ideal to start with small steps because life is a marathon, not a sprint, making it imperative for you to build endurance rather than going hard on yourself. It is much better to start small and gradually increase the intensity of the workout than to start with full motivation and giving up only after two weeks. Focus on the progress and try not to get consumed by an extensive workout routine. Start with 10 squats or push-ups or you can simply try skipping rope because doing something is better than nothing, which takes us to our next tip that stresses the importance of ‘something’.

4-Something is better than nothing

Transformation is not an overnight process. People who transformed their bodies also changed their daily life. They don’t set a time limit; rather, they are on the constant lookout for an opportunity every day to let this transformation happen. They know the importance of SOMETHING.

It could be that you got busier than you expected, but instead of getting a panic attack, see if you can have five or ten minutes to inculcate any form of physical activity; for instance, a brisk walk for 10 minutes still has benefits over sitting idle and scrolling through your phone.

Remember, life does not always go as planned by you. If you missed something important while doing something else, it is more appropriate to pick where you left. Don’t let a single day slip from you. Find a way to follow your daily agenda because if you get stuck feeling that you’ve failed in following your plan, then you are in for a lot of stress.

5- Don’t need to fall for the gym trap

As soon as you start planning for your fitness, the first piece of advice that you come across with is “gym membership”. It seems like everybody is obsessed with the idea of lifting weights at the gym but this is not 100% true. Though gym equipment can help you shape your body, this does not necessitate you to get your gym membership right away. In fact, you can reap similar benefits at home using suitable equipment that is easily available to you. Get your hands on your favourite at-home gym equipment from Xn8 sports.

Transforming your body at home is a ‘Yes’, but that doesn’t mean we're suggesting that you shouldn’t at all think about the gym or for signing up for a Bootcamp. We are only making a point that GYM is not the only way. Just spread your exercise mat and start doing it in the comfort of your home.

4 Habits that Assist You in Your Fitness Journey

1- Build a foundation

Foundation is a baseline that will ensure your success in staying fit. You need to set your foundation and there are four main pillars that will help you build it up. In fact, these are four basic things that are required for a healthy lifestyle.

1. 8- hours of daily sleep
2. 30 minutes of daily physical activity
3. Drinking enough water
4. Eating healthy

These four elements will actually build an optimal environment for you in which you can thrive. If you think you already do better at these four fundamentals, then great, but if not, you don’t need to make your blood run cold. You can start building these habits and you can go with them one at a time. Moreover, you can also improvise other foundational elements using one habit.

2- Hold yourself accountable 

Accountability is central to any institution and is such a concept that brings significant changes if we apply it for day-to-day matters of our lives. The same goes for your fitness regime.

There has to be a system in place that can keep a check on your daily routine and that system exists both within you and outside you. Internal and external accountability are well-known terms. External accountability works best for many people when it comes to exercise because fear of being accountable to someone else makes people follow the regime a little more seriously.

Look at it as a form of habit that you have to build for your own good. Get yourself a fitness partner that can monitor your progress. Or you can share your workout calendar with your family member or a friend who is checking on you, so to create transparency around your progress. A fitness buddy, like we said earlier, can be a great incentive for you to keep lifting those dumbbells.

Most people hire personal trainers for this purpose, but if you don't have one, this shouldn't stop you from moving forward. You can switch to your internal accountability mechanism by setting clear goals on weight loss or maintenance and by rewarding yourself on small accomplishments that you may pick on the road.

“Every habit has a reward: when our brain starts to anticipate and crave the reward, it makes the behaviour automatic”.

Source: ‘Anyone can change any habit’

3- Tracking your performance 

You are going to make changes in your life by building new habits that are parallel with your fitness goals. Tracking your habits can be helpful, for it will keep you informed on your pluses and minuses throughout your fitness journey. 

Remember that when you will have clarity of your goals, it will create motivation, and when you start reporting your actions to reach these goals, accountability will be in place.

Likewise, tracking your habits will create awareness. How? When you track how many calories you consume in a day, it gets easy for you to pick your meal according to your fitness plan and stick to your calorie window.

When you track at the micro-level, you will understand that when you undereat or overeat. Similarly, you can track your physical activity using apps that are easily accessible to everyone.

4- Mark your calendar

The schedule is not only about marking your calendar to fix the date and time for any activity; it actually has a magical power to make things happen on time. When you know you have certain activity listed on your schedule, you are more likely to do it.

Most people complain about lack of time and cite it as a major reason for not doing exercise. But the reality is that you find time for what you deem important. If you can’t manage to go to a gym, there are plenty of exercises that you can do at home.

Just schedule the time even if you have to do it for ten minutes only. Whatever time you choose, make sure that you schedule no other meeting during that time.

Conclusion

Starting a fitness regime takes motivation and dedication on your part. Look for the opportunities that you can utilize to keep your body moving because movement will make your fitness dream come true. Ultimately, the key is the patience and fortitude. Be kind to yourself even if you fail at achieving your goal within your set timeline. Be gentle and accept the process. If you don’t like doing something in your fitness regime, be fluid to change it. With time, you will eventually move up on the ladder and will be more contented with yourself.