The thought of starting a fitness journey can be exciting, motivating, delighting, challenging, and horrifying at the same time. It can be an overwhelming baggage of emotions. It can be a life-altering challenge. It is like crossing a bridge; on the other side awaits a changed life.
Only if you are willing and determined to define the quality of your life and take a leap of faith in yourself, here is all that you’ll ever need to know before beginning your life-changing journey.
What challenges lie ahead?
No one said it is going to be easy, and those who said it is, are lying to your face or trying to sell you something. Only if you want to see that transformation in yourself, you do have to pay a price for it. The Enemy Mind:
The biggest obstacle that crosses our path before meeting all the dreams and goals, is our own damn mind. One needs to conquer his mind before anything else.
It is always going to be you VS you tussle in your mind. There are going to be loads of questions, fear, doubt, and suspicion, stopping you from taking the first step towards the change.
Everyone goes through that, you are not alone in this battle.
Even though these feelings may leave you overwhelmed, you need to sit tight and believe in yourself and your abilities, because it is you who has to go through this journey and these feelings are just a phase of the transition towards a better and enhanced lifestyle.
Just believe in yourself, “you have all the things that are needed to accomplish your goals”.
The Physical Pain.
When starting a new physical regime the shock and stress on the body can cause a hell lot of trouble.
Every bodily movement you do in the initial days would bring you discomforting aches and muscle pain.
Pain is inevitable if you want to physically transform your body. You wake up to it and sleep on it every single day. It would only be foolish to fear it and try to find ways to escape from it.
Although with a few techniques and smart work, one can surely lessen pain but still pain would pave your journey every now and then, it is a symbol that your body is under transformation and much work is needed to be done.
It’s like a hangover on the next day after partying.
What can be done is to face it with full mental strength and think of pain as a reward for the hard work, simply changing the perspective about pain would help a great deal to face it and live with it, eventually the body gets adjusted to the pain and one barely feels it.
Motivation Factor.
Motivation is a driving force that makes human beings thrive in harsh and difficult situations and makes them capable of accomplishing impossible-seeming tasks.
Motivation provides us with valuable insights into human nature. It is capable of changing the course of our lives in various ways.
It boosts and forces us to level up by changing our behaviour by developing a positive attitude, developing competencies, being creative, making plans, setting up goals, and pushes us towards growth.
But, unfortunately, motivation is simply not there every time whenever you want it.
To accomplish your goals what you need is self-discipline, it is the factor that motivates you when external motivation is not there.
Where to Begin?
Start With a Health Checkup.
This is one pro tip only a few people might tell you. Checking up on your health before putting your body under stress can be a lifesaver thing you can do for yourself.
Nobody can tell what is going on inside their own body.
It might be diabetes, an injury from past physical trauma, or it could be nothing at all, but just to be on the safe side it is always better to consider a proper health checkup.
After all, precaution is better than cure.
Be Realistic.
Before you are all set to go and decide to put in the work you have to make sure that you have achievable goals, people set unrealistic goals and get disappointed when they don’t see the result.
Set up sustainable targets and goals, it will help you continue with the regime happily instead of quitting it.
Have a proper plan to follow. Often people start working out and quit too early only because they found it too hard to do it regularly. This happens as they don’t have the plan to look upon.
A good plan will not only help your progress but also keep a track of it. People often start without a plan and fail miserably. “Don’t be people”.
Workout Plan.
Forming a good workout plan solely depends on your fitness goal, whether your fitness goal is to lose weight or gain some extra pounds of muscle.
A balance of weight training and cardiovascular exercises is a must to stay fit overall.
Cardiovascular exercises will boost your endurance and help you extend your workout duration, it also keeps your respiratory and circulatory system healthy and helps you lose excess fat from your body.
Weight training or resistance training will help you build strength and add muscle mass to your body. It improves your muscular strength, keeps your joints strong and prevents injuries.
In the current scenario, fitness has been confined to the gym. Every other fit person whom you know surely hits the gym, but fitness has a wide variety of aspects.
H.I.I.T., fartlek training, interval training, marathons, cross country runs, yoga, pilates, Zumba, aerobics, anaerobic exercises and many other ways of training are available in case you want to avoid going to the gym.
In case, you are absolutely clueless about where to start. Youtube is the ultimate destination for you all. It has hundreds of fitness channels and fitness plans meeting variable requirements.
You can surf and find the best fitness regime and plan that suits you and your lifestyle.
Nutritional intake.
Regular exercise combined with a healthy balanced diet helps sustain physical as well as mental health.
This helps regulate healthy weight and also enhances quality sleep and mood, providing a healthy lifestyle.
Your diet is everything wrong with your body. A poor and unhealthy diet leads to obesity, hypertension, and heart-related problems.
It is vital to design a diet plan according to your requirements that meet your fitness goal. Your nutritional intake depends on your fitness goals.
The amount of calories an individual has to intake depends variably according to the need for physical activity.
For instance, the calorie intake of a bodybuilder would be entirely different from an average person who just wants to lose some extra pounds of fat to lead a healthy lifestyle.
Consumption of micronutrients (vitamins and minerals) is just as important as consuming macronutrients (protein, carbohydrates, fats).
Eating a balanced diet with sufficient macros and micros will help you keep in shape but will also improve bodily metabolism and enhance your physiological performance.
A clean and balanced diet is crucial during a fitness journey because what you consume will directly affect your physical growth and recovery and help you keep moving for the longer run.
Proper Hydration.
Hydration is one of the best and easiest things you can do to your body. It is an effortless step but can be a game-changer. Even if you don’t work out it is essential to drink fluids all around the day to maintain healthy hydration levels.
Water provides energy to your body by transporting nutrients in your body. It regulates the body temperature and lubricates joints.
Low hydration levels make you may feel tired, have muscle cramps, dizziness, or other severe symptoms
How much water do you need to consume to be adequately hydrated?
Before starting your workout consider various factors such as heat, humidity, sweat rate, and length of time of activity.
( the American Council on Exercise guide on how much water to consume while, pre and post-workout.)
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- Drink 17–20 ounces of water 2 hours prior to your workout.
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- Every 10–20 minutes during the workout drink 7 -10 ounces of water.
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- For every pound of water weight loss, drink up to 16 to 24 ounces of water.
Rest to recover.
Rest is essential to relax your overall body due to the strain caused due to tension and also to control your breath.
As a beginner workout can take a toll on your body, especially after a gym session and it might take a full day of rest for your body to recover.
The rest between sets depends on various factors.
For instance, exercises that are heavy on muscles and target multiple muscles at a time demand more recovery time before starting another set.
On the other hand exercises such as bicep curl will only require a rest period of 45 to 60 seconds before going for another set.
Your fitness goal also determines the recovery period.
People training to build muscle and strength mass will have a longer duration of rest after each set to perform each set with maximum intensity for a maximum no. of reps.
If you aim to burn fat and develop endurance, the rest duration between reps has to be less to keep your heartbeat elevated.
Recovery is not only limited to the gym. Your body needs recovery after a workout too in order to repair the wear and tear of muscles.
Include a stretching session after your workout. Stretching relaxes your muscles and increases the blood flow which enhances the recovery rate and keeps your body away from injuries.
The most important part of recovery is sleep. Sleep is the best form of recovery. Your body requires rest for repair and maintenance.
Are Supplements Necessary?
There is a huge hype created regarding protein and supplements.
Do not get terrified of it, you do not need any kind of supplements until you are a pro athlete or a fitness freak who is pushing your body to its limits.
Protein is required by the body for the repair and maintenance of cells and tissues. It is advisable to consume protein from regular food and diet instead of buying a protein supplement.
Food is more than sufficient to meet your dietary requirements.
The balance of carbs, protein, fats and micronutrients makes all the difference.
How to track progress?
Tracking your progress is a necessary step for moving forward in the journey. You should conduct tests at regular intervals on areas you are working.
If you are training for strength, go for one rep max once in a while to test your limitations and areas you need to work upon.
Similarly, if you are working to gain muscle mass, record your body measurements weekly.
The most significant indication of growth is instinct, you will start to feel positive with a sense of elevated energy levels in your body and you will start to feel progress even if there is a little.
What should I do when I hit a plateau?
Every single individual who once started working out has hit a plateau or stagnancy at some stage.
A plateau occurs when the body gets accustomed to a certain stimulus and stops responding to it; or in easy words, your growth stops and fixates at a certain level.
Don’t start worrying once you hit a plateau. In fact, hitting a plateau is a good thing, as it implies that you have already made progress.
Plateau usually occurs when your body is not provided with enough challenge, you perform exercises with incorrect form, or due to insufficient recovery from the previous training session.
Plateau can be overcome by changing the workout program; it includes changing volumes and repetitions of exercises, decreasing/increasing weight during strength training, and changing periods of rest and recovery in between sets.
Overcoming a plateau is about discovering your strengths and weaknesses and then working on them by making little tweaks here and there to progress further.
Another reason your body hits a plateau is that you are not pushing yourself enough.
Ask yourself, if you are giving your 100%. Obviously, it’s only imaginable to give your 100% each and every day. It’s almost impossible.
But the question is are you trying your best, giving it all in, whatever possibly you can? If not, then you have your answer.
It takes time!
Fitness is not something you develop overnight, it is a slow and long journey. It takes time to develop it, simply expecting results overnight would be foolish.
Fitness is a lifestyle, once you get used to it it becomes as important as other life activities such as eating, sleeping or simply breathing.
Building healthy habits, maintaining consistency, and developing discipline takes a lot of effort and then a lot of time.
All you have to do is push yourself to a better lifestyle and be patient.
Patience will lead you through this journey and then you will see the process work with time.