Being Patient With Your Body Through Your Fitness Journey

I know you want quick fat loss, but…

If you've just started your fitness journey, then it's easy to get discouraged. It's a little rough walking into a gym for the first time and seeing everyone with sculpted muscles and fit bodies. However, it took them time to get to where they are, and the same can be said for you when you're there. It might sound discouraging, but any online fitness coach will tell you not to negativity cloud your motivation. There are a couple of points you should follow before you step into the gym.

Fitness Takes Time

Ask any online fitness coach, and they'll tell you there is no magic pill that will make you lose weight instantly. If there was, there wouldn't be any need for online personal trainers or gyms. It might be hard to hear, but there is no quick and easy way to get fit. If you want to sculpt your dreams' body, you need to be patient and stick to a routine.

Keep in mind, your body didn't get to the point it is now overnight, either. You might look back at photos of yourself in school and wonder what happened. You probably found stressful work, have no time for working out, started a family, and got stuck in the rat race of life. You didn't have the time you had in school to run around the playground or do mandatory physical activities. There is no mandatory physical education in the real world. You're on your own with money for the first time and tempting takeout food.

Don’t Get Lost In Aggressive Diet Plans

Companies know people are desperate to lose weight. They develop aggressive workout systems or diet plans that are too extreme for the average human body. There's no healthy way to lose forty or fifty pounds a month. Those types of diet plans are just not sustainable.

When people decide they want to go on a diet, then the first thing they're going to do is cut as many calories as possible. They'll read online guides about clearing out the fridge and starting fresh. While that is good advice, people often take it to the extreme. They'll cut calories to the point where they're depriving their bodies of nutrition. This type of aggressive calorie-cutting is called "crash dieting," and it can cause health issues in the long run.

Crash dieting puts unnecessary stress on the body. People think it works in the short run because they see immediate results on the scale, but don't let that fool you. You might see instant results, but your body is pumping stress hormones throughout your bloodstream, making you hungrier and hungrier as the crash diet goes on.

People end up only focusing on calories while paying no mind to nutritional value. They'll deprive themselves of calories so dramatically that they're slowing down their own metabolism. When your metabolism is slow, it causes long term weight gain. Cutting calories so significantly means you're depriving your body of vitamins, fats, minerals, and proteins it needs to survive. It's not about chewing on a piece of celery and calling it a day. While celery does have it's nutritional use, it doesn't give your body everything it needs to maintain things like your bone tissue or lean muscle.

You are causing issues with your muscles, bones, and metabolism, but you're also putting your heart at risk with these crash diets. Those with any underlying health issues, such as a heart condition, might find themselves in a difficult situation trying to cut calories so dramatically. When it comes to dieting, change doesn't happen overnight, and neither does fitness.

Sticking To A Workout Routine Takes Tenacity

Your adult life can't focus on an exercise program only. Yes, celebrities can do it because they have a team of nutritionists and private personal trainers but, chances are, you only have the time for trainers online with your schedule. That's okay, it's normal to be the average person who gets derailed in life. Work is demanding, your family needs time, and there are days where you don't feel motivated.

One of the problems people make when they step back into a gym is trying to start too hard. If you haven't been active for a long time, then it's not smart to try to make up for the lost time. You're not going to shed that weight overnight, trying to push yourself to the max on a treadmill or starting with the weight bench's heaviest weight. You're no in the body you had ten or twenty years ago. You might listen to workout tapes that tell you to "give it everything you've got," but those are for people trying to push past their limits. You don't want to do that until you've reached that limit. You're in a body that hasn't worked out for some time, so you need to be patient with your workout journey.

Don't try to start where you were the last time you were fit. That's not how the body works. You're going to injure yourself if you think you're physically ready to handle a heavy workload. Start easy so you can build your strength and endurance back up. On the first day, don't go jogging, just do a power walk for thirty minutes. Keep doing that until your body tells you to do more after a week or two. That's the key to being patient with your fitness journey: listening to your body.

How To Listen To Your Body

Your body knows how to tell you when it's tired, sick, hungry, or stressed. Your body isn't shy. When it's sending you signals, then you need to listen to it. You should go with an online fitness trainer because a hardcore fitness trainer will be in your face at the gym, telling you, "no pain, no gain." It's an okay philosophy if you're already at your limit, but it's not something you want to try on day one unless your goal is to injure yourself and make it, so you never enter the gym again.

Warming up before a workout and cooling down after an exercise helps you reduce your risk of injury. When you're warming up before a workout, you're preparing your body for activity. When you're cooling down, you're getting your body accustomed to the state it was in before the workout. You don't want to walk around with your body on edge because your muscles are braced, causing injury.

If you're starting to feel uncomfortable pain, then stop. Don't listen to people who tell you to push through uncomfortable pain. Trying to push through sharp pain can cause injury and sideline you for even longer than you were before you started your fitness journey. You have to be realistic with yourself at the gym. Don't push yourself too hard just because you see other people doing it. They took time to get to the point where they are, and it's going to take time for you.

Changes During A Workout Journey Takes Time

If your end goal for your workout journey is a complete transformation from who you are now to who you want to be when you look in the mirror, that will take time. Many end up quitting because they don't see instant results the next day. You're not going to wake up the morning after your first workout and see washboard abs. It's not surprising that many people believe that can happen because of misconceptions put out by diet companies trying to sell the next magic system that will give you the body you want with no effort.

You have to put effort into your fitness journey. There is no such thing as "low effort, maximum results." That's not how the real world works. Change in the real world takes time. Sometimes change takes a very long time, but you need to drop the mentality that you need to have it immediately. People want to have Summer bodies, but don't start working out until a month or two before Summer. They overexert themselves, not getting into the shape they need and then getting discouraged when they're not where they want to be. They'll go around telling people that the workout routine, or diet routine, they followed didn't work, but that's only because they quit too quickly. They'll sow the seeds of impatience in other people because of the misconception that fat burns off immediately.

Being Patient With Your Fitness Journey

When you think of the word "journey," you think of moving forward. You have to start somewhere, and you need to keep moving forward along your journey. If you need to employ an online fitness coach's services, then go ahead and do that. You get what you put into your fitness journey. If you aren't going to the gym at all, then you're not making progress. Don't get into the mindset that you need to go hard every time you go to the gym. You'll get to that point, but you need to be patient. You have to start slow and steady, so you can work your way up to the point where you're the person someone envies at the gym.

If you really want to be serious at the gym, it's essential to find someone who can hold you accountable. However, your life is probably hectic to the point where your gym time doesn't sync with anyone else. Fortunately, an online personal trainer is a perfect option for you. They are flexible and accessible with your time, and they're a lot more affordable than trainers who aren't online. An online personal trainer can help keep you accountable and help safely push you along your fitness journey.