how to start a fitness journy and stick to it.

how to start a fitness journey and stick to it.

starting a fitness journey is difficult for every one in one way or another , weather its not believing in your self , not knowing where to start or fear of the gym. their are ways around all these obstacles.

start from the basics what do you want to achieve?

knowing what you want to achieve is always the first stepping stone on any fitness and health journey. do you want to lose fat? to you want to build muscle and if so how much. what is your over all goal? once you know what you want (I will also point out it is ok to change your goals along the way I have many times) you have to know where to start and that is the kitchen. no matter what it is you want to achieve the most important part of any fitness journey be it to lose fat or gain muscle stamina or strength is food. clean healthy eating is the key with a few treats thrown in now and then restricting yourself  to much will be emotionally draining and will probably knock you off track very quickly.

general rules when it comes to food and fitness. 

fat loss.

to lose fat you want to be in a calorie deficit , simply put you need to burn more calories then you eat. this will help you lose fat , one of the best ways to do this is to do exercise obviously this can be weight training , cardio , HIIT (high intensity interval training) swimming , what ever you fined most enjoyable but it has to be challenging as well. you want to get your heart rate up , the length and intensity of what ever sort of workout you do will differ between individuals depending on how active you are day to day , how much stamina and strength you have already. you want to challenge your self and eat a lower calorie diet. this does not mean though that you have to restrict your food , or the foods you like. you can do this by either having smaller portion sizes of the foods you already eat. or quite simply going for healthier options of foods you already eat. I would advise to any one reducing their calorie intake to start of with some sort of fitness food tracker app like my fitness pal or lifesum. take a week to track into the app the foods you normally eat every day realistically with out starting your calorie restriction to see how many calories you eat on a average day. if your eating around 2000 calories a day for a woman and 2500 for a man then drop down to 1500 for a woman and 2000 for a man. that plus the exercise you put in should help you lose that stubborn fat fairly easily. if you fined your under eating already and your caloric intake is quite low anything under 1500 (W) or 2000 (M) , then you might be doing the opposite of what you want and shocking your body into storing stubborn fat , for this you might have to up your calorie intake.
if your body doesn't think it has enough food to maintain your lifestyle then your body will store fat as a last resort energy source. the rate of fat loss will differ person to person depending on body type , and metabolism.

building muscle

to build muscle you need to weight train , this could be using free weights (dumbbells or kettle bells for example) or body weight or machines. I would suggest a mixture of all of them , diversity and mixing up your routine from time to time makes the process more enjoyable and your less likely to get board.
I would advise as above to track how many calories on average you eat a day for a week to see where your at , you might then want to either bulk (eat more calories then you are already) to maximise muscle growth if you have a low body fat percentage to start off with , or maintaining the calorie intake your already on as long as your not on a calorie deficit to start with , your body normally eats through muscle before fat so being in a calorie deficit at the start of your fitness journey to build muscle could be detrimental to your progress. I always advise clean eating to every one . getting in your 5 a day , having good whole foods and having a diverse diet is key but remember this does not mean you cant have treats now and then. a doughnut once a week wont de rail any fitness journey as long as it doesn't become a daily occurrence after every meal. depending on the muscle growth you want , where on your body you want to focus and your body type will depend on your progress over all.

 

to build stamina

allot of people would argue that this is the most straight forward yet sometimes pain staking choices. building stamina really is all about pushing your self and constancy. basically the more you do some thing the better you get . if you want to be able to do a low intensity work out for long periods of time then you could start of going for a brisk jog and upping your time from 10 minuets to 15 or 20.
the couch to 5K is a great way to start doing this. basically going from no exercise to pushing your self a little extra further every time you work out making yourself better and stronger. you might fined that to keep building your strength then a calorie deficit probably isn't right for you , a high carb diet might work wonders for you and with any long periods of cardio your body needs all the energy it can get if you dont eat enough then you might fined that your body uses up all your  glycogen levels and starts pulling from your muscles for energy and losing muscle mass will make you weaker and consequently you wont be able to progress with your training.


I cant stress enough how important it is to fined a workout plan and nutrition plan that you enjoy. theirs no point in doing any of it if it makes you miserable or board.

 

fearing the gym

this is a big one for a lot of people and I totally get it. I was terrified of the gym I didn't know how to use any of the equipment , I didn't know how to conduct myself in the gym and I was convinced every one was judging me. theirs easy ways around this though. you can watch youtube videos of people using gym equipment and see how they use it, this will put your mined at ease slightly as you wont look so clueless if you come to use a machine for the first time and don't sit on it backwards or something. (and yes I have done that before). get a gym buddy if you can it doesn't matter if their experienced if they are they can guide you and if their not then you can learn together and you wont feel so alone I the gym. if you Bothe mess up its allot easier to laugh it off when its two of you instead of just you on your own.


look around online at other peoples experiences and see what advice they have o offer. its always a good idea to try and get as many examples of success and how it was done as you can I would just avoid crash diets and a workout routine that's not maintainable over a long period of time because that's how you lose progress and have to start all over again.

just make sure you enjoy what your doing and the success will follow.