Are you getting bombarded with healthy New Year’s messaging everywhere you look?
I don’t know about you, but the weight loss resolution stuff is ALL OVER. I’m talking the promotions for the January fitness challenges, shakes and powders being disguised as “lifestyle resets,” all the clean eating messaging, 15-day promises to the best abs yet, New Year New You, blah, blah, blah.
I want to help you cut through all the noise, which is why today I am here with 8 simple reminders as you either start or continue your health and fitness journey in 2020!
1. Extreme measures will not yield sustainable results.
You do not need to completely overhaul your life overnight, spend hours in the gym, or give up your favorite foods in order to achieve the change you want. Trust in the power of small steps being enough, and understand that it’s those people who try to overhaul everything who end up falling off the wagon first.
2. Don’t be afraid to lift heavy weights and get strong.
Do you want to lean out? Get toned? Want to see your muscles when you look in the mirror? See your confidence go through the roof? Then you need a strength training component to your fitness. Remember that heavy is relative to the person. Outside of body change, lifting weights will help you get stronger physically, mentally, give you non-scale goals to work toward, you’ll have improved hormonal balance, the list goes on and on. My mission is to help women step into their most empowered selves, and I’m telling you, hitting those weights is one of the #1 ways my girls are able to do this. This doesn’t mean get rid of cardio all together — nope! But pick up those weights, your body and mind will thank you.
3. Stop relying on willpower and motivation.
These are both a crutch, and both will both fail you time and time again. Neither of them exist in infinite amounts. You might think that people who eat nutritious foods and exercise have more willpower or more motivation than you. NOT TRUE. These people have simply learned the strategies for navigating making food decisions and they’ve learned how to act outside of how they feel in a moment.
4. All foods can fit.
Maybe in the weird days between Christmas and New Year’s you found yourself eating all the things because you felt like they would be off limits to you once January 2nd was here? I promise you, that mentality will get you to about January 10th, if that. When you have healthy relationship with food, there is room for all foods, on any day of the week, at any time of year. You simply have to learn how to master moderation and heal your current food hangups. The only foods that should be off-limits in your life are the ones that you don’t like and the ones that don’t agree with you! Not the ones that some arbitrary diet labels as “bad” for you.
5. Have a strong why and a specific how behind the what.
You might say you have goals for the New Year, you are making resolutions, you are setting intentions… whatever you call them, make sure you don’t just leave it at your desired outcome. Too many people focus only on that end game. Without a strategic plan that’s not cookie cutter so it can be customized for you, and without a strong why behind what you are trying to achieve, just thinking about those desired outcomes won’t get you very far.
6. Find what you enjoy, and do those things.
This is so damn important! If you are eating foods you hate for the sake of health, you gotta find new foods (or more likely, new ways of cooking/preparing/ordering). If you are doing exercise you hate, stop! I can’t even tell you the number of women who start working with me and tell me they’re running even though they hate it because that’s what they need to do in order to lose the weight. What excites you? What interests you? You gotta find a way to weave these things into your health and fitness journey in order to achieve sustainable change.
7. Be imperfect.
Oh my gosh, could we just all be okay with having a bit of chocolate? Have a bad day and be okay with it? Not freak the eff out when we miss 3 workout days in a row? Accept that we aren’t going to nail something on the first try? Understand that life happens and it doesn’t mean we are failures, it just means we are human?
8. Stop glorifying doing, doing, doing.
This is something I have worked on SO MUCH in the past few years, and it’s something that will always be hard for me. I think one of the healthiest things you can do for yourself is stop wrapping your self-worth in how busy you are or how much you’re producing. Redefine this for yourself. How can you just BE? How can you slow down? How have we reached this point where relaxing is hard for us to do? Let go of the feeling that you “should” be doing something all the damn time.
Let’s chat! I would love to know which number, 1-8, resonated with you the most.
Want more guidance around how to build a legit fit lifestyle that you absolutely love living? I invite you to join my free Facebook community, the Legit Fit Lifestyle Lounge. The members of this group know that fitness is so much more than a number on the scale or the size of our jeans, and we focus on keeping things realistic, simple, and sustainable when it comes to movement, nutrition, self care, and mindset. You can request to join our no-bullshit, thriving fitness community here!