Staying With It

People often take a stab at a lifestyle change by adding a fitness routine and/or eating better. It's not always easy to maintain a new lifestyle if A. You are not 100% committed, B. You do not have a support system or C. You have a combination of A and B.

The people successful in making positive changes in their life are those determined to see their goals met at all costs. A rainy morning will not prevent a determined person from getting their run in. A late night at the office, a child's baseball practice, traffic, a bad day... The list of excuses is long. A successful goal setter will ensure they do not let the obstacles become excuses.

It helps too, to have people in your corner. That friend who tells you to skip the gym because she wants a buddy at happy hour is the personality a successful goal setter will want to avoid. Sure it's fine to have fun with friends, but plan those happy hours on your rest days. You'll enjoy them even more!!

I will share a few things with you that keep me successful in my training. People often wonder how I stay motivated, but motivation may not be a factor. It boils down to commitment. Being driven to stay committed.

1. Enjoy. Do what you like to do! Don't run because you think you should. Do it because you are passionate about it. If running isn't your thing, then bike, yoga, kick box, power walk, weight train, zumba, or do all those things! If you don't like your workout routine, you will not stay committed.

2. Prepare. Know what the week ahead holds. If you don't know, then find out. Build your workouts and meals around your life. Or if it works better to build your life around your workouts, that's fine too. Always lay out your clothes the night before for an a.m. workout. Bring your gym bag to work with you for a p.m. workout. If you are meeting friends for dinner, plan a morning workout. If you need to be to work early, workout in the evening. Change your clothes at work then go straight to the gym. You're less likely to follow through on a plan to hit the gym if you stop at home or run errands.

3. Eat well. If you eat like crap, your body will react like crap. If you don't feel well during a workout, you will enjoy doing it less, thus being likely to stop.

4. Be accountable. Track your workouts and monitor progress. When I realized my running pace was 60 seconds faster per mile than a year ago, I wanted to make it 90 seconds faster. I'm now working on shaving off another 30 seconds per mile. Runkeeper.com is awesome for tracking cardio progress and Fitness Tracker 90 is good for resistance and weight training.

Talk about your progress with others. If you tell someone about your plan to run the next morning it may encourage you to follow through. Or BLOG about it!! LOL. Use Facebook... Update your status to say "Gone Running". Personally, I feel like if I say I've gone running, I MUST go running. It's following through, which I'm all about!

5. Set goals. Always wanted to finish a 5K? Better yet, in under 30 minutes? or even under 25? How about those half marathons all your girlfriends have been doing? Want to jump on the band wagon? Set your goal, create a REASONABLE plan and get it done!!

Okay, so there are some secrets. When people ask me, "how do you it?" and I reply with, "it's just one foot in front of the other, over and over and over", I guess I'm being cynical. There is MUCH more to it. And much more to it than what I just wrote about. It's got to be IN YOU. You've got to WANT IT. We each have our own secrets to success, and I'm glad I could share a few of mine with you.