Castle Personal Training
Castle Personal Training is a Corstorphine, Edinburgh based company who specialise in weightloss/toning and Pre and Post Natal exercise.
Blog 01-02-13 New Year’s Resolutions – How is your Motivation?
Hi guys,
I’m going to be writing a weekly blog for Yofittv.com, it’s a new Yoga and Fitness video website that’s pretty cool. I guess they are aiming to be the Youtube of the fitness industry, but with a bit of quality control, which would be an amazing feat. They also have written stuff on there and I am going to stick to the written word for now as I think there’s a lot to be said for being able to read information rather than getting it in verbal or video form.
Anyway; the guys at Yofit are dedicated to fitness and I am sure it will be a big success. Any blog I write for them will be posted on my own website a few days later as I am rather busy and have no chance of writing more than 2 blogs per week, obviously there will be an original “this blog” only post every week as well. I am talking to other websites about doing some guest blogging for them and will let you know about that in the near future.
This is a blog I wrote for them on 01-02-13. I have tidied it up a bit for my own website’s format. Yofit are going to go through some changes with their lay-outs and re-design, which is very exciting, so I’m hoping it should match soon.
New Year’s Resolutions – How is your Motivation?
It’s the 1st of Feb as I write this and I wonder how many of you are already feeling like this year is not going to be your year. The honeymoon period of the New Year is over and those New Year resolutions seem like hard work now. Your motivation might be lagging a bit and it’s time for a kick up the wazoo.
This year will NOT be the same as any other years! You will not be making the same resolutions for 2014 as you just made a month ago! And this is what we’re going to do;
1; We’ll write down our goals, again. Take a close look at your goals. Were they realistic? Were they specific? Most people make the same mistakes when they make their resolutions. I’ll give 2 examples that you might identify with;
Goal 1; Lose 20Kg this year. The problem with this goal is that there’s no pressure on you to make this work. If you have a long term goal like this but don’t break it down you’re not going to kick this into gear. You probably tell yourself that you’ll start tomorrow or next week and that “There’s plenty time yet as December is a long time away”. Yes, it is but not if you want to meet your target.
Let’s have a look at what you need to do to actually lose the 20Kg by December. You need to lose about 2Kg per month. That’s slightly more than 1 pound a week. We know that 1 pound is 3500 calories and we know that it takes a bit of work to lose a pound a week. We know that we can do this BUT you have to break down your goal! You have to lose 2Kg in Feb and that means it’s time to kick yourself into action! If you wait another month you will have to work a lot harder as you’ll then need to lose 2.2Kg per month. It might not sound like a lot but it’s a 10% increase in the effort you’ll have to put in. If you can’t be bothered now, it won’t happen then either. Remember, we are looking at doing this a sustainable way; A combination of healthy eating and regular exercise whilst still enjoying life.
December is your shark, it will sneak up on you. Just like it did last year.
Goal 2; Run a marathon in July. So, you’ve never run before but told yourself that you would start this year and finally join the huge number of people running marathons. We’re going to have to adapt this one a bit as you’ve not started yet and that marathon is too big a goal and it will cause you to stop training when you realize this yourself. We’re going to amend this to a marathon later in the year BUT with a 5k in April and a 10k in July.
If you don’t run at the moment training for a 5K takes about 5 weeks. The 10K schedule only takes another 5 weeks after this and you should have caught the running bug after your 5k success so marathon training should be a lot more straightforward.
If you put intermediate, but progressive, goals in place you will make it.
2; Write down your obstacles. You have written down your goals and know exactly what to do, so now it’s time to remove the obstacles. First things first; Are they really obstacles or just excuses? A few examples:
Obstacle 1; You are tired. So you are tired after work. You’ve had a long day at the office and now just want to sit on the couch and pig out. Yeah, I hate to say it but that’s an excuse. It’s been long established that exercise boosts energy levels. You’d be less tired if you just got off your bum and started exercising.
Obstacle 2; Time. So you have a job, kids, a partner and a social life. You have a busy schedule, I understand this. We’ve all been there. There are 2 issues here but let me start with the most common one.
You’re not prioritizing exercise. If you have time to watch TV, sit on Facebook and play games you have time to exercise. Exercising doesn’t need to take hours. Thirty minutes of hard exercise a few times a week is enough. Most of my sessions don’t last beyond 45 minutes, including a warm up and cool-down, as most people would simply not make it past the 45 minute mark. If you can make it past the 45 minute mark you are either very fit or, more likely, have not been working out hard enough.
If you really don’t have time, and it happens, let’s see if we can find you some;
Can your partner take care of your kids for 30-40 minutes? Can you set your alarm clock for 30 minutes earlier? Can you go do a bit of exercise during your lunch-break? Can you walk, or jog, to work? Can you work out with your kids? Join a “mommy workout” group. Most of them incorporate the stroller or buggy into the exercise. Some gyms have babysitting or a crèche where you can put your kids for an hour or so whilst you get a workout, and a break.
There’s your time, just be a bit creative.
Obstacle 3; Money. You have no money left to spend on working out? No problem. You can workout at home, for free! All you need to do are bodyweight exercises! There are loads of them. Push-ups, squats, lunges, tri-cep dips, stair climber, dynamic planks. Too many to mention. Or you can go on YoFitTV and find some amazing workouts there.
Those are the most common obstacles people come to me with. Obviously you could have something else, such as an injury, but there is almost always a way to work around that as well. For instance; Does an arm or shoulder injury stop you doing leg work-outs? If you like to workout with a partner/gymbuddy but they are slackers/no-shows etc and drag you down you have to find someone else!
All in all, it just comes down to this;
I am confident that you can reach your goals if you do the above two things. But it’s time for a close look NOW. A month has passed, the time for excuses is over and you don’t want to be the person making excuses in December.
Take care.
Your friend,
Peter
Castle Personal Training 