5 No No’s if you want to get in the best shape of your life

1. Don’t try to change everything at once! So important with either diet or exercise, not to make to take steps that are too drastic.  If your workouts are too challenging, you can hurt yourself pretty easily.   The best way is to start slowly and speak to a professional to help design a workout plan that is right for you.  The same rule applies to your diet, start simple like cutting out the soda and replacing it with water for a week.  Then the next week, no candy and the next replace white bread with whole wheat etc.….  After a year, your diet will be healthy and you won’t feel deprived.
2. Don’t expect to see changes overnight! The idea is to truly change your lifestyle.  Popping pills, lipo, or fad diets are not going to help you develop the discipline and habits needed to lead a healthy life.   Incremental goal setting and reaching those goals is the right approach.  Depending on how much weight you have to lose, you need to set long-term goals like 1 year or even 2 years.  Changing a lifestyle doesn’t happen quickly!!
3. Don’t follow the exact same workout regimen and expect to get continued results!  The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting different results.   This totally applies to exercise and is called muscle memory.   Doing a similar workout, the same length of time, and with the same intensity level will eventually plateau your efforts.   If you need ideas, pick up a new workout DVD, grab a book, or talk to a trainer and get some help making it more challenging or mixing it up .
4. Don’t just do cardio and expect to see the changes you are looking for in your body!  In my experience, women especially think they can run a million miles and that is all it takes to get in shape.  First of all cardiovascular fitness it only one component of fitness, strength and flexibility are equally important components.  Also, once you have low amounts of fat, your body starts to pull from muscle when doing cardio.  This, in turn, gives a lovely bag of bones appearance and no muscle tone and many times still a layer of belly fat depending on genetics.  Resistance or strength training equals Michelle Obama arms, sexy abs, nice booty and toned legs.  So, which look are you going for?!
5. Don’t hit short term goals without rewarding yourself!  Since a fitter, healthier you is a process and takes time, it’s important to give yourself a small reward each time you achieve a small victory.  Nothing food related is important, maybe go see a movie, get the new book, or a new pair of earrings.  Give yourself a pat on the back when you have worked hard for it!!

~ by Dee Whittington on July 5, 2011.