Spring Tips for Renewing & Keeping Your New Year’s Fitness Resolutions- Michael Sokol

Spring Tips for Renewing & Keeping Your New Year’s Fitness Resolutions

By Michael J. Sokol

Certified Personal Trainer

Owner of:  One-on-One Fitness Personal Training Service, Inc.

Slogan:  Not Just Another Dumbbell

Phone:  (312) 642-4235

E-mail:  info@USAgetFit.com

Web site:  www.USAgetFit.com

Usually by the fourth week of January, our New Year’s fitness resolutions begin to wane.  Spring is a great time to renew those resolutions.  Below are some tips for renewing and keeping those resolutions:

1. Set specific and realistic resolutions based on your past.  Learn from your past failures.  If you want to exercise five days a week and you’ve never done it in the past, then set a more attainable goal to work out three times a week.
2. Set smaller more attainable short-term goals.  Don’t expect to lose 30 pounds overnight.  Instead set a goal to lose 2 pounds a week.
3. Decide if you have what it takes to really achieve your resolution.  If you want to start exercising but have never lifted weights or been to the gym, there’s a good chance you’ll feel intimidated or confused, or worse yet possibly injure yourself. A better way to start would be to read up on the subject through a book or the internet for information on weight training; or work with a personal trainer until you are educated enough to go it alone.
4. Write down your goals/resolutions and a plan of attack.  Use specific, definable, realistic, clear and concise language and a timeframe in which to reach your goals. Remember, when you fail to plan, you’re planning to fail.
5. Keep track of your progress.  Write down how you are progressing each week.
6. Use positive wording.  The way you talk to yourself has an influence on your ability to reach your goals.  Learn to have a positive “can-do” attitude.
7. Don’t make excuses.  Whatever excuses you come up with that become obstacles, remember that they are only excuses.
8. Ask for help.  Ask your family, friends and colleagues to help you out and keep an eye on you.  Ask them to encourage you and hold you accountable if you get sidetracked.
9. Develop strategies to deal with obstacles or problems.  Learn how to deal with obstacles and problems that arise.
10. Take pride in your successes and learn from your failures.  Take pride in your success when you achieve a goal/resolution.  If you fail, take the blame then develop a system to do it better the next time.
11. Begin to view fitness like brushing your teeth.  Would you skip brushing your teeth in the morning because you are too busy or don’t feel like it?  Likely not.  So, view fitness the same way and make fitness a permanent part of your daily routine, realizing it only takes 20-45 minutes/day.