Developing Consistency With Exercise And Nutrition

Have you tried losing weight before? It seems like a challenging process. You start with a diet and exercise routine, and all is going well for the first week or two, and then the cheat days start. You tell yourself you just need one day off, and then that turns into a week. Then you tell yourself that you've done good with your diet, so you can afford to have a pizza. That's when you tell yourself, "what could go wrong?"

What Are Cheat Days?

Even the best dieters can't live without their pizza, cake, and sushi. It's only natural to be hungry and want to treat yourself after making good progress on your diet and exercise all week. People believe the weekend is the perfect time to take a break. Unfortunately, a two-day break can lead to a week, and now you're back on Google wondering what could have gone wrong.

Cheat days are a recipe for disaster. You'll end up thinking you've done good enough to warrant hurting any fitness gains or weight loss you accomplished that week. Not only can cheat days ruin your health gains, but it can harm your body as well.

How Can Cheat Days Affect The Body?

When you're not putting carbs, fat, and sugar into the body for a week, your pancreas has gotten used to a routine. However, when you have an entire day or weekend where you overload yourself with sugar and carbs, your pancreas will work overtime to create insulin.

Unfortunately, the argument to justify a cheat day is to help keep the metabolism stimulated. Your metabolism isn’t going to jump-start just because you ate thousands of calories worth of pizza. If you’ve spent a week or two following a rigid diet, then going overboard can throw you off course. When your cheat day throws you off, then it could affect your fitness routine as well.

How Do Cheat Days Affect Your Fitness Routine?

If you're trying to lose weight, then having a cheat day can affect your fitness routine. When you binge eat on a day, then go back to your fitness routine, then you're going to overexert yourself at the gym to compensate. You'll work out a little harder than usual to make up for your cheat day's calories.

Exercising too much to compensate for food can put you at risk for injury. This is especially true if you didn't work out during your cheat day at all. You're putting more stress on the body when you're trying to overcompensate. One of the best ways to avoid this cycle of dieting and cheating is to keep consistent nutrition and exercise routine.

Developing Consistency With Nutrition

It's essential to establish a routine when it comes to nutrition. It's no secret that humans are creatures of habit. If you develop a routine, then you're most likely going to stick to it. It does sound challenging to change your daily habits, but it is entirely doable, especially if you have an online personal trainer to help hold you accountable. Consistency with nutrition is one of the only ways to see long-term results. Once you follow a consistent routine for long enough, they become healthy habits that you can stick to.

One of the best methods for consistency is by journaling your nutritional intake daily. When you document your journey, you're more likely to see what's working and what isn't working. You'll be able to identify bad habits that are causing issues. Find every avenue to remind you of your daily nutritional habits. One way to do that is to set reminders on your phone to subconsciously keep you in check. Have a reminder to tell you to avoid refined carbohydrates or sugar. It's challenging to do, but once you find consistency, it'll be easier to follow.

Of course, you have to be realistic with your expectations of weight loss. The reason why many people end up quitting a routine is that they don't see instant results. They expect the weight to fall off when they eat a piece of celery instead of a slice of pizza, and that's not how weight loss works. It's discouraging stepping on a weight scale and only losing a pound or two.

No new routine is going to change you overnight. It's not realistic to stop drinking soda and seeing immediate changes. You're going to spend a week eating healthy food, and then step onto a scale to see you haven't lost a single pound. That's usually the point where people end up giving up with their diet. They'll go online and talk about how the specific diet that went on didn't work because it didn't work for them after a week. Dieting isn't instant gratification.

Another way to get into a new nutritional routine to stay consistent with is to ease into it. One of the problems with getting into a new habit is people end up going into it too quickly. Any good trainers online will tell you that changing a routine too much too fast will have you give up too rapidly. It's challenging to go from one routine to another, even if it's an unhealthy routine into a healthy routine. For example, if you're so used to having sweets at night following your dinner, you might have some cravings if you try to change it the next day. Taking baby steps towards starting a new routine will help you ease into the routine a little easier.

If you’re serious about sticking to a routine, then you’re going to need some support. You can find support through a professional online personal trainer who can also help you with your fitness routine, post your daily results on social media, or keep your friends or family in the loop. It’s easier to lose weight if you have other people following your journey while helping you stay accountable. You don’t have to share your progress with only family and friends. You can share progress with a gym partner, a personal trainer, or strangers on social media or various dieting apps. Finding a support group online or in-person will help you find like-minded people who are also going through a weight loss journey and can offer tips on sticking to a consistent nutritional routine.

What Motivates You To Stick To Your Nutritional Goals?

Take time to sit down and write down why you’re starting a new journey in the first place. Do you suffer from the physiological effects of being obese and want to take the necessary steps to feel normal? Did you survive a recent heart attack or stroke and want to make healthy choices to prolong your life during your second chance? Did you have a child recently and want to make sure you’re there for the long haul? What motivates you to stick to your nutritional goals?

It might sound silly, but one of the best ways to stick to a consistent nutritional plan is to use positive reinforcement. Wake up every morning listening to motivational tapes on YouTube or various mobile phone apps. You can also save your favorite inspirational quotes from scrolling through or posting them onto your social media to inspire others who might be going through the same weight loss journey you are.

Unfortunately, one thing that kills motivation is comparing your journey to someone else's. You might be a part of a dieting group and seeing someone else having more success you are. Don't get discouraged when that happens. Use it as motivation. When you take your time to compare where you are in your journey to someone else's journey, you will receive a step back. You might fall off the path entirely. Staying consistent with your nutritional goals might sound hard, but you'll develop healthy habits once you commit to a routine. Is it possible to also take this advice with fitness goals?

Developing Consistency With Fitness

If you go back and read the tips for staying consistent with nutrition, you can extrapolate a lot of that advice into developing consistency with fitness. One of the best ways to stay consistent with fitness, which any online fitness coach can tell you, is to start slowly.

If you're getting into a new fitness routine, you're not going to step into a gym and start tearing it up. Don't expect to go from zero to a hundred at the gym because you're going to wear yourself out and take more rest days than you need. Like with nutrition, you need to start slow and develop good habits that you can stick to.

Fitness and nutritional goals often go hand in hand. It's important not to cheat on one or the other may go down with it. If you have a cheat day where you're consuming thousands of calories and taking sporadic naps, you'll find yourself too fatigued to work out the next day. You tell yourself that you're just going to work harder the next day, but that could lead you to overexert yourself.

Like nutrition, one of the best ways to stick to a consistent fitness routine is to find what motivates you to go to the gym. Are you doing it to prevent heart disease? Are you doing it to look good in a pair of pants you bought? Write down your motivations every day. Put a reminder on your phone or put a piece of paper on your fridge. Keep some post-it notes in your bathroom and write it down, and put it on the mirror as you're getting ready.

There are a lot of benefits to exercise than just losing weight. There are mental benefits to sticking to a fitness routine as well. You'll find yourself being less irritable, suffering from less stress and anxiety, and improving your mood. Maybe sticking to a fitness routine is precisely what you need to improve your relationships with family, friends, or a spouse. Sometimes it's easy to take the stress of your day on people in your life, severely affecting your relationships.

You could also join a fitness group to help you stay accountable. There are also many apps you could use to track your fitness routine that you can post up onto your social media accounts. Seeing your results daily can help you improve upon your previous day's record. When you measure your progress, then it's evidence that what you're doing is working, and it will help you stay motivated to continue. Of course, there's nothing that can replace the motivational advantage of having an online fitness coach.

Can An Online Fitness Coach Help You Reach Your Goals?

Online trainers can support you through your fitness needs. Having an online fitness coach doesn't just help you with your motivation and accountability. Having an online trainer by your side gives you the freedom to exercise around your schedule and know someone will be there to help you up when you fall, digitally. Having an online fitness coach is advantageous to those who are also looking for overall wellness. They empower you to make the right choices with your nutritional and fitness needs. You won't have to worry about embarrassing yourself with them, because they're there to help you. Plus, having an easily accessible online fitness trainer will save you a lot of money. They are usually very affordable and won't break the bank just to lose a couple of pounds. They will help you towards your fitness and nutritional goals, but they'll help you sustain it as well. That's what's important here: sustainability. Sustainability towards your overall wellness will help you live a happier and healthier life.