Help & Tips > Keep exercising past 3 weeks
"If you want to be healthy, you can be healthy. It's simply a choice that you make." |
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Keep exercising past 3 weeksKeep exercising and don't give up! This is often easier said than done.
There can be a lot of resistance to changing your exercise habits. When you are feeling tired or sore, it can take a lot of effort to keep exercising to achieve your weight loss goals.
How is it possible to keep exercising when you simply don't feel like it?
There are ways. I have observed many different people who have committed to an exercise programme, and there are trends as to when things are easy, and when they get difficult. Here's what I have seen:
The third week of any process of change is often the most interesting.
What do I mean by most interesting? Well, from what I have seen, it's at this time when our initial enthusiasm and determination gets tested. Tested by events that come up. Tested by making 'mistakes' in what we are doing. You see, after 3 or 4 weeks, the following things are likely to happen... It's possible that you will miss your first workout, or you will have some periods where you don't get your meals right. Or a couple of days go by where you don't spend time on your personal goal setting or motivation exercises. It becomes hard to keep exercising. You see, after these slight (and inevitable) disruptions, often it can be tempting to not return to the new habits we have just spent the last few weeks establishing! I guess it's the natural inertia that we need to overcome to make change. But when a few things don't go quite according to plan, it can be temptation to 'go with that' and not return back to the efforts we have making. a
This has been described as 'backsliding'. Imagine climbing up a loose, rocky slope of a hill. After making great efforts to make your way 50m up this slope, you lose your footing slightly and slide back downwards for 5m. It feels like you have slipped back and lost ground. But in fact, what has really happened is that you have gained 45m. And that is the idea to focus on. That focus will help you look past any current disappointment, and help you keep going and keep exercising. Don't think that you can't keep exercising just because you haven't progressed like you want in recent times. Be thankful that you appreciate what it feels like to 'slip' a little. And use the slight 'slip' to regain focus and concentration. And also to remember all the progress you have just made. You see, you wouldn't notice a 'backslide' if you weren't already moving forward! When you are making change, there is no way that things will go perfectly. It's all about learning how to do your best, knowing that challenges are always there for you. The key thing is to focus on keep moving forward week-by-week over the number of weeks that you have planned to get in shape. The key is to get to the final week. Not perfectly, but to get there having learnt as much as you can. And you only learn when you are in motion! So always keep exercising, having faced and accepted the challenges so far! |