A very familiar sight comes round on an annual basis everyJanuary, those regular gym members see it every year, you’ll see memes everyDecember in the build-up to the new year - the gyms are about to get stupidly busy! It’s rammed, you can’t get on equipment, and you don’t feel like it’s time well spent - David Attenborough could probably make a documentary about it in some gyms. But another familiar sight is that this annual event ends by the end of the month and normal service is resumed, why though?! Why does this keeping happening? Every! Single! Year!
Simply speaking, “the new year, new me” mindset just does not work! You can have the best intentions to make positive changes to your health and lifestyle, get a gym membership and promise yourself you’re going to use it and for that first month you will. But the problem you’ve got is in reality you’ve completely pulled the rug from underneath your life and made huge changes that you won’t be able to maintain over a sustained period of time. Going from not doing any training to trying to get 4-5 sessions a week in just never works. You find yourself not having enough time to do other things you’d normally fit in during the week, energy levels drop as they’re not use to this intensity, and very quickly you’ll find yourself not enjoying it and will end up “packing it in”. Your new gym gear will just end up buried at the bottom of the draws, gym bag will probably end up somewhere in the garage. In the end your hard-earned money has been wasted! The last thing anybody wants to see.
So, what do we do instead?
As simple as the explanation is, the solution is just as simple - don’t rush! Build up slowly, give yourself time. Those people who have been doing it for years didn’t just jump straight in, they built up consistency, made it part of their routine, apart of their lifestyle.
The best thing to do is to introduce training into your week a bit at a time. Start by aiming to make it in once a week - that’s it! That’s all you need to do to start with, it apparently can take on average some 66days to create a habit which means if you’ve dropped the gym before the end ofJanuary you haven’t even come close to developing the habit yet. So, if you were to start by just making sure you’ve been to the gym once a week without fail for the first month, you’ve now got a little routine from which to build on from. If by some chance you managed to get in a couple of times a week in that period, even better! But definitely holding yourself accountable to make at least 1 session a week. Then for that second month, maybe even further along(it’s not an exact science), add that second session into the week. Give it time, make sure you are getting in twice a week, every week for a period of time just to make sure you’ve got time to train and fit everything else in too.Some weeks you might not manage that second session, but if you’re still getting in once a week, you’re keeping up the habit of turning up.
Managing your time can be a big factor between success and failure in your fitness journey, building structure and routine come over time,not in a few days or weeks.
Gordon B. Hinckley said:
“You can’t build a great building on a weak foundation”
Same can be said for your health and fitness!
