10 Ways To Get Fit, Even If You've Never Been the Gym
It is intimidating to take the first steps towards getting into shape, especially if you have never tried to do so before. Whether it has been for health reasons, good luck, or a lack of motivation, you feel you don’t have the experience to succeed at the gym or with exercise programs. However, everyone can succeed at getting into shape regardless of their know-how. All you need to do is know the best way that can deliver this success to you.
This is because everyone is different, and what might work for friends, family, or strangers on the internet may not work the same way for you. To give you the best introduction to the next stage of your life and the fitness that you’ve always wanted, here are ten ways to help ease you in and give you the results that you want.
Make It Easy For Yourself
One of the easiest ways to get into shape is to make it easy for yourself. If your head is not on board with your body, you will never find the health and fitness that you need.
Too many people invent excuses for why they can’t exercise. It could be that they don’t have time after work; they get up too late in the morning; the weather isn’t good enough to do anything. However, none of these are correct, and there is always a way to exercise.
If you are short on time, find the time. Get up half an hour earlier and pack your bag the night before. Likewise, even if the weather outside is too grey to go for a run, you can at least lift weights or do some bodyweight exercises from the warmth and comfort of your living room.
Master Portion Control
Shifting your diet and portion control from large to medium, and even to small can be tricky. However, once you master the art of controlling how much you put on your plate, you will find that you are still sufficiently full even if you don’t feel you have eaten as much.
Using smaller plates will give the illusion that you are still stuffing your face. Similarly, supplements such as Raving Trends will provide you with the extra help you need to shed pounds even if you struggle to cut down your portions as much as you’d like.
If snacking is a problem for you, consider switching your typical sweets and candy with healthy foods like nuts and berries.
Sleep Is Essential
You cannot expect to have the energy to work out and cut weight if you do not get enough sleep. However, with life and work being so stressful, it can be difficult for anyone to get their recommended eight hours every night.
The problem with this is that it catches up to you. You can’t run on a half-empty tank forever, and at some point, you’ll run out of energy. To overcome these problems, give yourself a bedtime routine and stick to it, at least at first. Get rid of the screens and read or meditate instead.
The more exercise you do, the more tired you will be at the end of the day, and you will be able to get the rest that you need to keep you energized for tomorrow.
Don’t Expect Results Immediately
If you have never worked out before or even tried to cut weight or increase strength, it can be tricky to know when to start seeing the results you want. For many people, being unable to see results immediately will discourage them, and they will feel like there is nothing they can do to see positive progress.
As a rule, it typically takes more than two weeks to see any results, and in some cases, it could be as long as six months. Often, however, others will see the changes in your body before you do, and this can give you the motivation you feel to keep going and hit the impressive heights and goals you have set out for yourself.
Find An Exercise You Love
You never want to dread the workout you are going to do. You won’t enjoy it, and you will try to get it over with as quickly as possible, which could affect your form and the quality of your exercise. Instead, look for a workout that you love doing. If you find something you are excited to do, you will embrace it faster and make excuses to do the workout, rather than find excuses to avoid it.
This will take away something that many first-time fitness buffs struggle with: motivation. If you are motivated without forcing yourself to be so or hoping you get into the groove eventually, your workouts will be more successful, and you can transform it from something you should do into something you need to.
Find Consistency
Consistency is another big thing that many novice gym-goers struggle with. Even if you try to hit the gym every day, things will get in the way, whether that’s family emergencies, traffic, power outages, or work commitments.
Without this consistency, you will struggle to develop and maintain a routine that will ensure you see the results you want to see. If you struggle with finding consistency, work out a contingency plan if Plan A doesn’t work. Rather than go to the gym, workout at home or go for a run instead. You should also force yourself to squeeze a workout in during your spare time, even if it’s just a quick yoga session in your office.
Turn It Into a Lifestyle
You should never follow a fad diet. They are called fads for a reason, and so it is unlikely that they will stick around for too long. Instead, consider the types of food that you want to eat to help you get into shape.
Everyone’s body is different, but we are still fundamentally the same when it comes to what we should put into our bodies. You should learn how you can make food work for you, rather than expect it to be a magical cure for your problems. Start planning your meals and cutting down on the foods that are most harmful to you. From this discipline, you will find that you live a much healthier lifestyle and see the results.
Get Others Involved
People love to be sociable, and exercising alongside others is one of the most enjoyable feelings that you can encounter when trying to get into shape. You feel like everyone is in it together, which gives you a bubble of support that will keep pushing you.
It is especially useful when first starting your fitness journey. Working with others takes away the early nervousness, and instead gives you people to talk about your journey with. As you are around other people, you can use them to motivate and push yourself. It’s not entirely right to call it a competition, but it’s close enough to this that it will breed success in everybody.
Be Held Accountable
As a caveat from working alongside others to reach your fitness goals, they can also help you be held accountable. Working out alone means you can take days off whenever you’re not feeling up to it, you can have a cheat day or two throughout the week, and you can ignore your schedule in favor of doing something else.
However, this doesn’t provide any benefit for you. It will only make you stray further from what you want to achieve. By having people hold you accountable, either in person or online communities, you can keep your head straight and ignore the voice in your head telling you to take a day or week off.
Find Distractions
If you struggle with staying focused at the gym or on your runs, you can consider finding ways to distract yourself from the workout. In the past, people have used a playlist full of songs they know to help push them through each stage of their exercise. They know, generally, how long each song is, and when you contextualize that with a run, you think about it as another four songs, rather than recognizable distance markets.
If you’re at the gym, take your iPad and play a TV show that will immerse you for 45 minutes. Shows such as early episodes of Lost or season 1 of 24 will hook you and refuse to let go, and by the end of the episode, you’ll realize that you’ve smashed your workout without needing to think about it.
Each Small Step
You will never find the success and results that you need without taking a small step first. Getting into shape may seem intimidating right now, and there will also be times where you want to give up because of how hard it feels and the lack of progress you may see. However, nobody managed anything without graft and determination. So, keep on pushing yourself, and you will be rewarded sooner than you expect. You’ll quickly forget that you had never worked out at all before, and you will feel confident and happy in yourself.