I have spoken a lot about New Years Resolutions over the last few days, but this post is the most important.

So many people take the start of a new year as a sign to begin an exercise and diet regime. Those who don’t do so, nor want to, may feel pressured to do it too. The gym becomes flooded with people, a good proportion of which don’t even make it to the end of the month.

Why?

Due to the pressure of having to start a new exercise regime to lose weight or achieve fitness goals, a lot of people go from barely working out to working out almost every day. This is not sustainable, physically and mentally. Like anything, the initial high falls into place after exercising for a couple days or a week. Eventually, though, this burns off and your mind and body begin to feel tired until you don’t go to the gym one day and then never go back. This has happened to a good chunk of people I know. They feel like they have failed and they tell themselves “I’ll never go back now!” and so their mind starts to believe it.

So, tip number one: if you want to focus on fitness and weight loss this new year, do so cautiously. Create an exercise plan, working out 3-4 times a week, not every day. This way, it will be easier to stick to this, and if you can’t go to the gym on one of the scheduled days, you have room to change the plan for the week.

Tip number two: you won’t see results straight away. You will start to feel the results after 2-4 weeks – weights become easier to lift, those ten minutes on the treadmill feel easier to run. In the next 4 weeks, you will start to see a physical difference in the mirror, although this does vary, depending on your weight goal, before and after. After 8 weeks, you will start to see a huge difference. However, it is important then that you don’t fall backwards after you start to see some progress. Stick to your plan and you’ll be rewarded with even better results.

Tip number three: don’t stress if you can’t train. If you’re ill for a long period of time, or you are simply too busy to hit the gym, it’s ok. Not all of us can fit the gym in all the time. Don’t put the pressure on yourself to workout if you don’t feel up to it. However, moving onto tip four:

Tip number four: you have to have self-discipline. I preach a lot about listening to your body and only working out when you want to, and although this is the number one rule when it comes to working out (in my opinion anyways), if you have certain goals, and you are slowly reaching them in HEALTHY ways, you have to have discipline. Those days where you can’t be bothered to go to the gym, do so anyway. It’s fine to have lazy days here and there, but if you really want something bad enough, you’ll go out there and get it. These days can involve a shorter training session, again, not putting the pressure on yourself to whack out a 2-hour session when you simply don’t feel like it. You have to have that discipline to reach those goals.

Tip number five: make sure you’re doing it for the right reason. You might have a clear fitness goal or weight goal in mind, or you might have more of a toxic goal. So many people jump on the ‘new year new me’ bandwagon, especially when it comes to the gym. A lot of these people don’t need to be losing weight, and others continue to do so in very unhealthy manners (trust me, I should know!). Make sure you’re wanting to lose that weight for a particular reason other than ‘I want to be skinny’.

Tip number six: remember that all bodies are unique. You may want to find out what body type (or somatotype) you are before embarking on a fitness journey. There are three somatotypes, although they often cross over: endomorph, mesomorph and ectomorph. Click the link here to read more about them. Alongside this, we all have different speeds of metabolism. Some diets work for some, whilst not at all for others.

Tip number seven: please make sure you are eating enough. An often misconception with weight loss is that you have to eat the bare minimum, track calories, alongside all the training you are doing. Do not cut out carbs! Carbs give you the energy to train, so by cutting them out, fitness sessions may feel even harder than they already are.

I had a lot of doubt about sharing this post, as I know a good proportion of my readers are ED recovery advocates like me and understand that losing weight and having that ‘ideal body’ isn’t everything and doesn’t make you love yourself more, in extreme cases I mean. I wanted to share this as I know that my views are of those extreme cases and that lots of people do want to lose weight, tone up, and improve their fitness. I used to see this as a bad thing, and every time a friend or family member would tell me that they are on a new diet and want to lose weight, I’d freak out and tell them that they can’t do that. Reminding myself that I went through something individualistic and that not everyone is predestined to have an eating disorder helped me understand that people may want to lose weight and that that can be done in a healthy, natural way :)