There are two beliefs that stop most people from losing weight, getting fit, or improving their health and fitness.
The first is the belief that properly exercising and eating healthy is time consuming and hard. The truth is most people drastically overestimate what it takes to properly exercise and eat healthy.
Thinking you have to work out seven days a week, run endless miles on the treadmill each morning, never eat out, cook and eat seven small meals of plain chicken breast, raw broccoli, and oatmeal everyday just to lose thirty pounds, won’t inspire you to even start an exercise and nutrition program.
It’s not worth it! There’s just not enough return on the investment of your time and energy. Not only is the scenario above not inspiring, it’s not necessary!
If you want to set yourself up to take action and have long term success, you need to accurately assess how much time and energy is actually required to improve your health and fitness.
What if you could drastically improve your health and fitness exercising three times per week for forty-five minutes at a time? What about twice a week?
The good news is you can! Many clients of mine have done exactly that. Three forty-five minute workouts equates to 1.3 percent of all your time during a week! That’s not so much right?
Increasing your overall daily physical activity is a huge part of making two to three workouts each week effective.
Activities like hiking, biking, pick-up basketball games with your kids, dance lessons with your spouse, chasing your dog around the park, or walking the golf course instead of using a cart, are all ways to increase physical activity without adding additional hours of “exercise.” These activities aren’t exercise, they’re fun, they’re life!
Sure, you have to eat healthy. But by having a few easy to make “go to recipes,” and “go to restaurants,” where you know you can pick up a healthy and tasty meal on the fly, makes eating healthy easier than ever.
If your finances allow it, you can even outsource the entire process to a meal delivery company like Freshly, completely eliminating the time variable.
The second belief stopping you from losing weight, is believing that losing weight is the main benefit of exercising and eating healthy.
Losing thirty pounds might not be enough of a return on the investment of your time and energy to get you into action. You need to think bigger! After all, the number on the scale is just that, a number.
What’s the real benefit of losing thirty pounds to you?
Here are four powerful questions to help you determine the real benefit of losing weight or getting fit?
How will you FEEL after you lose 30 pounds?
What will you do when you are 30 pounds lighter?
How will your life be different? What will change?
Take a few minutes and explore the answers to these questions. These answers will drastically change the cost benefit analysis associated with integrating a health and fitness plan into your life.
It’s the answer to these questions that will inspire you to take the action to integrate sustainable, efficient, and effective exercise strategies into your life!