Creating small but effective habits and building them into a sustainable routine is key for achieving long-term fitness goals and for feeling fitter, healthier and stronger.
When we embark on a new fitness or nutrition regime the first few weeks are naturally the hardest. Most people struggle to get past the two-month mark and revert to old, more familiar habits.
Luckily, there are simple things we can do to change this and build new and longer-lasting habits.
First, let’s look at exercise. One of the best ways to stay on track is to find a time in the week that works best for you to go to the gym or train at home. By keeping a regular time slot in the week solely to focus on your fitness rather than deciding ad hoc when to exercise will help you to build a more sustainable fitness schedule.
When you have your time in place, you can then build in more hours in the week when you’re ready. Over time you will find what works best for you but having a schedule that becomes habit will drastically encourage you to stick to your fitness routine.
So, you have your fitness routine sorted but what else can you do help you achieve your fitness goals and improve all those hard-earned results.
Sleep is a massively underappreciated fitness aid. It is one of the best tools in your arsenal which can significantly aid recovery after exercise and help to augment your results. Building better sleep habits, including keeping to a regular bedtime will help you to fall asleep quicker as your body becomes used to falling asleep at a set time. This will help you to aim for a healthy amount of sleep.
Some may need more or less, but the average person needs at least 8 hours sleep per night and an absolute minimum of 6 hours. On occasion, a short nap of around 20 minutes can also help the body but this is entirely dependent on the person.
The body has many functions, and when we’re awake, it has to focus on keeping us alert, moving, digesting food and more. While we sleep however, the body can fully focus on muscular recovery, not necessarily from exercising, but also from injury. This is why it’s so important to get enough sleep, as our body can put all of its efforts into repairing muscle.
Similar to your fitness and sleep, eating at set times will further help you to keep consistent. The more consistent you are with what, and, when you eat, will help you to stay on track over the long term. Also, try to find the very best nutrition options to suit your schedule. If you only have a short amount of time in the morning, opt for the quickest and healthier option that you can stick to day to day.
Now that we have our exercise, sleep and nutrition habits set, what else can we do to improve the results we’re aiming for.
Finding other time in our daily life to squeeze in added exercise will add up over the week and have a big impact.
For example, could you walk to work? If yes – great – that would be a perfect way of getting in those necessary daily steps.
If not – do you take public transport? If so, can you get off your bus or train at an earlier stop and walk the rest of the way. Once you are used to getting off at a stop earlier, could you then get off two stops before your destination to build up more steps and increase your daily exercise?
You can do this for your nutrition too. Placing your supplements, for example, close to where you make your daily tea or coffee, will help you to remember to take them and form a new habit. Having similar lunches, or rotating a couple of options throughout the week will help you stay on track and keep to a set nutrition plan.
Over time you will become used to building up small habits like this as a means to getting in more exercise and ultimately becoming fitter. This will allow you to stay on track to your goals over the longer term.