Get Fit with Chris: Getting into a routine again...

Jan 15 2009 By Chris Lee

The beginning of a new year and we are faced with another 12 months of trying to get the weight off we have piled on in the last few weeks of total over indulgence.

But with the party carefree attitude still lingering and the weather just not able to get any colder without polar bears moving in next door, how do we go about re-establishing our fitness regime and healthy lifestyles?

Well before you even think about dusting off your trainers or finding your shorts (that were last seen on your head while letting off party poppers) there are one or two thing you might want to consider doing first.

• Go through your entire house and remove all left over Christmas goodies, any chocolate crisps, sweets, cheese that you were kindly given or bought in for the festive season. Be strong, sweep clean and get rid of the lot. This may sound very wasteful so if you prefer you kind find a worthy homeless charity to donate it to. Either way it has to go, if it’s left in the house it will just be too much of a temptation.

• Do the same brutal manoeuvre with the alcohol and fizzy drinks. Again may seem wasteful but it will only sit there until you drink it. It’s the best time of year to try and create new habits or guidelines to live by and control out lifestyles. I am not saying you need to stop living but getting everything back into moderation after a full-on season can be tough. The best way is to clear it all out, take a week or two off to help your system recover and then you will find it much easier to control your diet if you decide to allow treats or the odd glass of wine to creep back in. But be wary of re-establishing old habits which are the downfall of us all.

Once you have cleared out the house it’s still not time to fire into full training again. We need to establish a manageable routine before we start adding the pressure of the workout intensity,

• Identify four 30 min slots in your working week which you can dedicate to exercise, either the morning before work, lunch times, after work or a combination of all three.

• Once these slots have been allocated get into the mind-set of changing into your workout kit and going for a walk, a gentle cycle ride, a visit to a class or gym with no pre-conceived ideas of what you are going to do. Just turn up for the session and do what you feel you can. The purpose of this is to establish your routine without having the added pressure of performance to put you off before you start. Just promise yourself you will turn up.

• After maintaining this for at least two weeks things should be starting to fall back into place, you will have your lifestyle and eating habits in good order and have stuck to only buying healthy fresh meat, fish and vegetables and not gone back to having too much alcohol in the house and you will be managing to exercise at least three out of the four planned sessions.

• Ok so now it’s time to take more structure to your exercise and the best place to start is with a goal of some description. It can be 5km fun run, a certain amount of weight you want to lose, certain clothes you want to fit into, a holiday or a wedding. Anything that is going to motivate you.

• Now make a statement of commitment tell all your close friends and family that’s what you want to do. Once you have declared it to others it’s harder to fail, you can even print off a little message and pin it to the fridge and the dashboard of your car or other prominent places like on your desk at work

• Now break your goal into manageable stages that should only take 2-3 weeks to achieve like run or walking a mile, lose four pounds etc; That way with small benchmarks in place it won’t seem like such a long uphill struggle.

• Remember the biggest mountains are conquered with the smallest steps.

• It might also be a good idea to help you put in place your changes and stick to them to seek the advice of a personal trainer; they can also help you to structure your exercise and goals so they are realistic and fun.

• For more information contact www.trojantraining.co.uk.