With restrictions and lockdowns in constant fluctuation, fears and anxiety about getting sick, and an overall knock to our daily routines, it’s become harder than ever to maintain a strict and consistent health and fitness regime. You might be eating more, training less and jumping on and off the bandwagon when it comes to your health. Here are a few tips to combat this and get back on your habits for good.
Commit to Staying Home
For many of us, gyms opening and closing has been the ruler of our fitness routine. When gyms close, we become completely sedentary and even when they reopen it’s tough to get back into that routine. Rather than relying on your gym being open to get your workouts in, commit to being an at-home trainer.
While you can rely on body weight and workout videos to stay fit at home, you could also consider investing in some equipment so you don’t get bored. You might want to check out this Bowflex PR3000 Home Gym review as a great option that allows you to complete many different exercises.
Have Goals
Just because you’re not working out in a gym doesn’t mean you can’t still set goals for yourself. Having something to work towards is an important part of maintaining motivation to keep working hard. You might need to adjust your goals, but set them nonetheless! Write them down and hold yourself accountable so you keep working on the habit.
Track Your Habits
Habit tracking is a great way to hold yourself accountable, gain a sense of accomplishment and see whether or not you’re on track. Our goals, whether they’re fitness-based or not, are all achieved through consistency in various habits.
If you have health or physique goals, you’ll only reach those by maintaining daily healthy habits like training, eating right, drinking enough water and sleeping well. Using some kind of habit tracker (whatever works best for you) is a great way to take note of where you’re doing well and where you’re falling behind and not being consistent.
Make it Easy
We follow the path of least resistance, so obviously, you need to remove resistance from whatever path you want to take. Making things easy for yourself is one of the most important parts of staying consistent with your habits.
This could look like anything, depending on your own goals and what distracts you or makes you lazy. Setting out your workout gear the night before, doing weekly meal prep so you’re not tempted to reach for takeout meals, getting an accountability partner, infusing your water with fruit so you’re more inclined to drink it… It’s all up to you.
Think about what makes you not want to do the things you know you should be doing, and then consider how you could remove some of the resistance.
The Takeaway
Being consistent in our health journeys is a challenge, with or without a pandemic thrown in the mix. Making commitments to yourself and holding yourself accountable is the only surefire way to make sure you stay on the right track.