5 Top Tips for Starting a Fitness Kick

You can start a new fitness kick at any time of the year, you can also fail at any time of the year. You might have ‘been there, done that, bought the T-shirt’ and now you’re ready to smash it. We’re right behind you, We asked PT Lucy from Lucy Loves Fitness to give her top 5 tips on how to start a new fitness kick and SUCCEED!

Set realistic goals which will motivate you. Setting an unrealistic goal will only lead to disappointment. Make your training and nutrition manageable – you’ll be surprised how quickly it becomes part of your routine. Week-by-week plan out what you’re aiming to achieve. Week 1 might be exercising 3 times, then week 2 it might be that you’re not going to eat out at all that week, week 3 could be that you won’t drink any alcohol and will increase your activity to 4 workouts…and so on. Map it all out, and know on Monday morning exactly what your goal is for the next 7 days.

Tell your friends + family that you’re working towards a goal so if you decline a glass of wine or a cheeky muffin you’re not being rude, you’re just making sensible decisions to help you along your way. Yes peer pressure will come in to play, it always does, yet when they see all your hard work pay off they will wish they were as strong willed as you. I’m not saying you have to say “no” to everything, but it’s a word which will come out a lot more in the short term.

Pack your bag the night before; you’ve put your training session in your diary, so let’s make it happen. Either lay your gym gear out on the bed if you’re going in the morning or pack it in your bag ready for later in the day. Similar theory for your food, if you have been super organised and done some batch cooking, then you should put the containers you need for the next day at the front of the fridge. Any ambient items which don’t live in the fridge, can be left out on the kitchen side next to your keys, or by the front door. Make it as easy as possible for yourself.

Enjoy your training! While there are advantages to certain styles of training, it’s often the case that the exercise you enjoy will get you the best results. There could a fitness craze sweeping across the world, and sure it might be worth a try, but if you don’t enjoy it and don’t feel the benefit then you’re not likely to want to get up at 6am to do it. That said, nothing good ever came out of a comfort zone so you are going to have to push yourself, break that sweat, get that heart rate up and feel uncomfortable. Find the right balance for you, maybe it’s 3 x sessions in the gym per week and 1 x fast walk outside, so you get a mix of hard work and something which is lower impact.

Stay calm. It’s only 1 workout that you missed or 1 meal that you had to eat something not 100% healthy and prepped by you. Acknowledge it happened, and move on. Move on to the next time you can be active as quickly as possible, or to the next meal. Don’t write off the day and certainly don’t write off the week. If you have to eat out unexpectedly look for the healthiest item on the menu with some protein, veggies / salad, and good carbs if possible.

Lucy is a fully qualified Personal Trainer living in Sydney, fitness has always been a huge part of her life and she’s tried most sports – dancing, swimming, surfing, rock climbing, pole dancing and triathlons though as she entered her thirties she noticed how what she was doing before wasn’t getting the same results so she got into Bodybuilding. This taught her so much about discipline, mental strength, changing body composition through resistance training and nutrition.

Lucy has competed in 2 seasons of Natural Bikini Competitions in Australia, and has gone through a strict preparation process twice to get ready for stage. Her focus now is on helping women to learn how to change their lifestyle for the long term, through making better nutrition decisions and implementing results driven exercise into their weekly routine.