5 Tips to Achieve and Maintain your Fitness Goals

September has arrived, and for many of us, that means reorganizing our schedules and committing to new goals. It’s a great time to take that renewed energy from summer and get our health back on track. Build a solid foundation to kickstart your health and fitness goals with these five tips:

Get Adequate Sleep

Adequate sleep is essential for good health and overall well-being. The brain is highly active at night, balancing critical hormones, fortifying our immune system, and rebooting our memory. Good sleep dramatically affects our mood and the decisions we make throughout the day. Consider proper sleep a nightly system upgrade, don’t get enough, and you’ll wake up feeling glitchy.

Get your best sleep by setting up a bedtime routine an hour before heading to bed. Check out this post for suggestions to help knock out like a baby (not a colicky one;).

Harness Internal Motivation

What’s your Why? Why are you carving time out of your life for a fitness routine? Go beyond the superficial reasons. How will this effort bring value to your life? How will it impact your day-to-day mood, energy, and function? Name specific ways you see it benefiting you (and those around you) in the present and long-term. Imagine how your life will look years from now if you don’t invest time in your health today.

External motivation (getting in shape for a reunion or fitting into your swimsuit) may drive you to take action, but eventually, it fizzles out. It’s fleeting and unpredictable. Harness your internal motivation.

Whatever routine you instill must be sustainable. Explore strategies that fit your unique lifestyle and don’t restrict what you enjoy.

Focus on Building Healthy Eating Habits

Are you holding on to eating patterns from your childhood or youth that do not serve your best health? Spending time building, exploring, and maintaining healthy eating habits is worthwhile. Step one is increasing your awareness of what triggers you to overeat.

Triggers may occur when you’re exposed to a specific environment or a scent (think of all the fries and doughnuts taunting you in the office lunch room). Even emotions and moods could weaken your resolve – resistance is futile. I’ll stop being so bleak. Let’s figure out some solutions!

Using an app such as myfitnesspal or jotting down your eating and nutrition habits in a journal is a good starting point. For the journal to be an effective strategy, write your meals, moods, and hunger levels truthfully. You’ll start noticing what drives you to overindulge. By the way, this may not come as a revelation to some of us (I can pinpoint mine…my husband comes home with salty, oily, and sweet snacks every Friday). Yes, I’m a lucky lady. Moving on.

Once you recognize your triggers, you can develop strategies to steer around them. Need help in figuring out a sustainable plan? Book a free virtual consultation with me.

Move Daily

I’m not suggesting you go to the gym daily. Just move! Flow. Stretch. Dance. Play. Walk. Daily movement is not just good for our physical health; it nourishes our minds and soul. Here are just some of the benefits of regular physical activity:

• helps to manage weight
• helps prevent or manage many health problems and diseases; i.e. decreases the risk of cardiovascular disease; manages arthritis; prevents Type II diabetes; etc.,
• provides stress relief
• boosts energy and mood
• combats depression
• builds strong muscles, bones, and joints
• helps you sleep better

Do you have a specific goal in mind? Are you ready for a personalized plan to help you feel more energetic and strong? Meet with me for a complimentary virtual consultation and fitness strategy plan!

Not ready for the commitment? Try a Free 14-Day Online Training Trial followed through an app. Get coaching support; stay motivated and engaged with healthy habit reminders; check in to each session for accountability; ask questions as you go along! This is a great way to dip your toes in the water, sort to speak.

Eat the Rainbow and Portion Each Meal

Just as you diversify your financial portfolio to cover potential downfalls, diversify your meals as a nutritional gap insurance. An easy and fun way to diversify is to select different colors of fruits and vegetables. Eating “the rainbow” ensures you get a multitude of antioxidants, vitamins, minerals, and phytonutrients found in colorful fruits and vegetables.

So you’re feeling really good about yourself eating more fruits and vegetables and end up “piling on the joy.” Overeating can wreak havoc on your health, on managing your weight and may cause intestinal discomfort.

Portion control helps to create a sustainable framework, so you know what to eat without much guesswork. Get healthy nutrients for your body by using your hand to portion your meals.

• Healthy Carbs, a cupped hand
• Protein, the size of your palm
• Healthy fats, your thumb size
• Vegetables, your fist size

Bonus Tip: Jazz up your meals!

Here are a few ideas to jazz up your meals with the rainbow of colors.

Which one of these components do you have a hard time implementing? Which one comes easy? Don’t hesitate to contact me with your questions and feedback. I’m here to help.

Thanks for stopping by!

Stand tall Breathe deep,
Corina