May 7, 2022.

We’ve all had some experience with the get-fit-quick trap whether knowingly or not. Most people think that it’s just getting fit and losing the results that’s horrible. However, there is a layer that is more frustrating. It’s having something you wanted so badly and losing it. It’s the disappointment of knowing you are capable of achieving something but not maintaining it. It’s also the frustration of having to start again, the fear that it will be harder this time and the possibility of not succeeding.

How to avoid the get-fit-quick trap

We all have a tendency of emphasizing achieving something more than maintaining the results. Fitness is a lifestyle. In fact, any goal you set should be a lifestyle change if you plan on sustaining it. As you pick your goals, emphasize on how you want to live and feel first before thinking about how you want to look. Also think about what you want your long-term diet to be and how often you want to incorporate exercise into your life. If you are in a situation where your current state is different from where you want to be, you need to find out how someone who is where you want to be lives their life on a daily basis. How is their diet? How active are they? What habits do they have? What do they not do? What mistakes have they made in the past? (The underlined are important questions) How have they maintained it? Once you can answer these questions, define how you will meet your goal in a way that is easy to maintain.

Maintenance during the process is nonnegotiable

Rule Number 1: Maintenace during the process is nonnegotiable. If you can learn to maintain results during the process, you will have developed the baseline mental muscle to maintain the lifestyle. How can you do that? Only make big changes to one area at a time. You can pair up big changes to your exercise with small changes to your diet for example. Develop one habit at a time. Once you’ve developed consistency in that area, add on another big habit change. The number one killer of momentum and motivation is overwhelm, which often happens when you introduce too much to the brain at once. Another reason why you need to make one big habit change at a time is that it provides proof to your mind that you can succeed. That belief is an essential ingredient to long-term success. That success will also act as an anchor when you add any new changes. For example, when I started my fitness journey, I made big changes to my lifting schedule. I was still doing cardio, but I didn’t focus on it. Once I had consistently lifted every week over a period of time, I started to make big shifts to my cardio by increasing time and days. If you create an anchor, you will always have an example that you can do it. But if you try to change everything at once you don’t have proof that you are capable and when it gets hard you will fall back.

Question of the day:

  • What can I do to ensure long-lasting results?

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