Fitness is a journey. If your goal is weight loss and you met your goal, you probably know that it is way too easy to slip into old habits. Here are some tips to keep the weight off and to maintain those healthy habits!
- Maintain Your Habits
Success comes from doing the same things every day which requires discipline and planning. Researchers say that it takes up-to 6 weeks to build a habit, and make it stick. If you don’t have a specific plan for sticking with a new habit, it’s all too easy to find that your already-packed schedule won’t allow you the ‘spare time’ necessary to do anything new very often. You’ll be too busy, too tired, or will easily find another excuse to dampen your best intentions.
That’s why a crucial next step is for you to set aside a specific time in your schedule that’s allotted just for your new training habit. The trick is to reward yourself for your first few steps until your new healthy training habit becomes ingrained into your way of life.
- Stay Active
Accountability goes a long way. Having a workout partner or group that trains with you each time is a huge help! It helps keep you motivated and accountable to your own training schedule. At PHF we’re all each other’s workout partners, we believe sharing goals with your workout partner can help motivate you in staying active throughout the week.
- Slowly Increase Calories
The stronger you are, the more fit you are, the more calories you are going to need throughout the day. Gradually increasing your calorie intake over a period of several weeks or months helps boost metabolism and help your body burn more calories throughout the day. However, it’s too easy to think, “Now I can have that chocolate cake!” Those calories will do more harm to your progress than good. Stick to your healthy habits! Add in that extra serving of protein (peanut butter, chicken, whole wheat pasta) instead of those extra slices of cheese pizza.
- Gradually Increase Training Intensity
Doing the same workouts over and over or using the same amount of weight every time you strength train can lead to your body plateauing: You may be able to easily lift weight that once was challenging, won’t notice any soreness, or any further progress being made.
Progressive overload is the concept of gradually increasing the weight, reps, or number of exercises as you workout. This benefits your training by pushing you past your plateau, and constantly challenging your muscles. Researchers have shown this is an effective training method for both men and women to get stronger. We have numerous certified coaches and professionals at PHF that can help you through your fitness journey, answer your questions, and to help maintain these training habits.
- Monitor & Adjust
Check in with yourself. If you find that you haven’t kept up with your new training habit as you’ve hoped, rather than beating yourself up over it, congratulate yourself for noticing that you need to change or modify your plans. This is very important as it’s the first step in building a new plan that will better serve you!
Source: https://www.healthline.com/health/progressive-overload#benefits