Okay, so we’ve all been there, especially at this time of year. We’re flipping through the glossy pages of our favourite magazines, drooling over this season’s latest bikini styles and of course the killer bodies the models are rocking. We then put the magazine thinking that could be me.
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And yes, it could be us. But, the problem is we often think to ourselves I could do that in a month. We then proceed to spend a month hitting the gym, calorie counting and pushing our bodies to their absolute limits because we want to see results and we want to see them fast. Sound familiar?
There’s just one tiny problem with this. It won’t work. This leaves us asking why.
Is it:
A: Because I’m burning myself out from going too hard too fast
B: My restrictive diet isn’t giving me all the nutrients I need to sustain the increase in activity
C: I’m too focused on the short term I’ve lost sight of the long term
D: Rock hard abs don’t happen over night, fitness success takes time
E: All of the above
Before you stress yourself out trying to figure out the answer, its E: All of the above. We cannot stress it enough. Fitness is a long-term goal, not a short-term goal. Here are a couple fitness realities that will help clarify what you should be doing when you first set out to get fit.
You need to rest
Say you started a new gym workout your mixing in cardio with weight training and at the end of the day your muscles ache so bad your walking like a penguin. This is good, the soreness in your muscles is a sign you’re strengthening them. But you need to rest them before you start training again. Working out 7 days a week will not get you better results to working out 5 days a week, your rest day is just as important as your workout days.
You need a balanced diet with lots of protein
Cutting out junk food and soft drink is a good start to achieving a healthier diet but you need to make sure your energy intake keeps up with your output. It’s recommended you eat 4-6 smaller meals a day rather than 3 large ones and diets high in protein help your body recover from strenuous exercise. These are just a few basic tips on maintaining a healthy diet but you should really consult a health professional before you drastically alter your eating habits to ensure your body’s getting what it needs when it needs it.
Weight training gives you better results to cardio
Cardio is a great source of fitness and burns fat at a decent rate. But weight training helps you tone up and turn any bits of flab you hate into lean muscle. It also burns more fat than long durations of pounding pavement by running, cycling, or climbing stairs. This is because your body continues to burn fat and develop muscle long after your stop working out. The minute you stop running you stop reaping the benefits of the exercise. Depending on your goals a combination of cardio and weight training can help give you the best results.
Although, we do want to stress one final point, lifting weights will not make you look like a body builder. Many girls fall into the trap of thinking weight training will make them so muscled they’ll look like a man. Well we’re here to tell you no, that won’t happen so don’t stress. Body builders follow insanely strict diets and have rigorous exercise plans and targeted training to get them the bodies they want. You cannot achieve that level of muscle unless you’re intentionally trying to.
However, the most important thing we need to remember is that success takes time. Hard work and determination will get you the results you want, not fad diets and pointless exercise.
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