Thursday, December 31, 2015

Goodbye 2015... Hello 2016!

Photo courtesy of FITspiration on Pinterest (rebelDIETITIAN.US)

December 31 – “Tomorrow, I will start the year right! I will start eating healthy and start exercising.”

January 1 – “Maybe I’ll start tomorrow, besides, who exercises on New Year’s Day?"

January 2 – “I’ll go out for a run.  I’ll far as fast as I could until I catch my breath.”

January 3 – “My knees hurt, my back kinda hurts, and my shoulders are a bit sore from running, but what the heck, that’s what I should feel, I must be doing it right.”

January 4 – “ Ouch! I think I’ll take a leave from exercising because my entire body is sore from exercising.”

January 9 “Today’s the weekend, I should try running again, maybe longer than what I did the other day…”

January 10 “Ouch, my whole body is just sore! I can’t move.”

Congratulations! You have been successful on your first week of your new year’s resolution. But how about the next 51 weeks of 2016?

We are always excited when we make new year’s resolutions.  But realistically, we sometimes get caught up with our excitement that we are not being reasonable.

SET SMALL GOALS AND BE CONSISTENT!

If you have been away from exercising for quite a while, or have ZERO exercise in the past, it’s always best to START SMALL.  

If you set high goals, tendency is to get demotivated right away.

Why not try walking for 15 minutes, three times a week rather than running 30 minutes in one day, then stop running because you were injured.  Slowly build a walking habit.  It’s very low impact. Let your body adjust to the new physical activity you are doing, instead of straining your body parts with high intensity workouts.  Yes, it is ideal to start joining high intensity “boot camps” or “training classes” but it may also expose you to higher chances of injury.

Whether it’s a short 2 kilometer run, a 1 kilometer walk, what matters is to be consistent.  Never end your week without any effort to do a physical activity. When you start small and gradually build up your intensity with your simple workouts, you can build up those healthy habits more consistently.  It is better to start small and be consistent, than to start big, and slack off when you suddenly become injured.

Check out my blog entry on STARTING A HEALTHY HABIT for more tips: http://runnerchix.blogspot.com/p/starting-healthy-habit.html


Happy New Year! Here's to a lean and mean 2016! 

Catch you later!