By Melanie Chisnall
These three exercise truths, that most of us don’t want to believe, will make a difference to your fitness and weight loss goals.
It’s not all fun and games
It’s true that exercising should be fun, but what most people won’t tell you, is that it’s also plenty of hard work.
And by hard work, we don’t mean the sweaty workout kind. We’re talking about mentally psyching yourself up to give it your all, every time.
The reality of exercise
Exercising is both a physical and a mental challenge. There will be fantastic days, and there will be days when you feel like permanently throwing in the towel.
The trick to keep at it, is to focus on your own personal goal and to always bear that in mind.
3 Truths about exercising to reach and sustain your goals (sub-heading)
- You need to set a schedule. Not for when you have time, not for five minutes here and there, and definitively not for when you’re feeling motivated to work out. You need to block off and pen in a good 30-60 minutes of exercise time each day and stick to it.
- You need to focus on the best exercises. Variety is good, but doing too much of everything isn’t very effective. If you’re hopping from one machine to the next at the gym without any goal in mind, you’re probably wasting your time. Stick to a few key machines or moves that target your problem areas. Focus on doing 10–15 reps and two to three sets of each.
- You need to record your workouts. If you can’t measure your progress, you can’t manage your success. Get a small notebook and write down your workouts every day. Record how long you walked/ran on the treadmill, how many squats you did, etc. This way you can look back and see what great long-term progress you’ve made.