The Beginning
Starting something new is always exciting. Deciding to make health and wellness a larger priority in your life is a huge first step and already a win in and of itself. You’ve decided to invest your time, money, and energy into something that you’re hopeful will improve your quality of life, help you feel stronger, and look better.
The Challenge
Honestly speaking, that first month will probably be the easiest month to maintain the discipline it takes to keep working out consistently. Then, even maybe after some results, that weekly chore of eating what you know is right, actually going to the gym, and drinking all that water, gets less and less attractive. And that’s perfectly normal!
More results, quicker payoff, less effort….these are all things anyone would want when doing something they don’t inherently want to do. So it’s 100% appropriate to have a waning draw towards the components that go into maintaining a healthy lifestyle when it’s completely new and all these changes have been made. The biggest advice here would be to learn to accept that this is just your new life. Congrats!!
Of course this is not to say you can’t ever have pizza again...that would be crazy. But accepting that all of these changes aren’t a short term fix to what is really a lifetime commitment is the first step. And that takes real time to develop, but if you stick with it, it will last as long as you’d like it to.
Permanent Change
All this to say, making the initial change is the exciting and sexy part and that nostalgia lasts a few months at most. Then you realize…”shit, I gotta keep doing this forever?!?” And yea! You do! But as time goes on the idea is you develop a way to eat healthy that becomes more enjoyable, you find that style of working out that doesn’t seem like a bore, and the whole process becomes a little less painful.
That’s all working out/eating right really is. An ongoing education of what workouts you like, what doesn’t taste like you’re eating cardboard, and just adjusting and building upon that. For most people, there’s no REAL reason we workout. No specific event we train for. Don’t want to hold anyone back though, so if your ice skating career is still in your sights, go for it! But for the rest of us mortals, it’s just about feeling good and being generally healthy as we age so moving isn’t painful.
Accept that there is no short term fix, and it will get more enjoyable as long as you keep putting the time in. Achieving results is a revolving door because your goals will always change, so you might as well enjoy the process!