3 Tips for Making Your Own Fitness Magic (Rabbit Not Required)

How do I pull a rabbit out of my hat?

I know this is a strange way to begin my post, but that’s the kind of question I’ve been asked by countless clients over the years. What this question alludes to is how to find magic at the gym and how to get fit and lose weight with the touch of a wand.

In reality, of course, the questions are more about tips and tricks or magic formulas. But my response is always the same: Sorry, my friends, getting in shape ain’t that simple.

As I’ve told you before, fitness takes work, and you have to adapt your entire lifestyle to maintaining it. Signing on the dotted line for a membership is the start of the journey, but it certainly isn’t magic.

However, there’s good news for those of you looking to lose fat and improve your health. Meeting your fitness ideal isn’t magic, but it isn’t too complicated either. Yes, there’s some math involved. You need to figure out how much of a caloric deficit you need to create (and how much is effective AND sustainable). You also need to figure our your macronutrient breakdown (again, it needs to be effective AND sustainable), but for the average bear looking for fat loss it’s not as complicated as we make it.

So, here are three tips to get you fit without needing a magician. Instead, you’ll make your own magic.

3 Tips for Making Your Own Fitness Magic

1. Rewind

To begin a new chapter in your fitness journey, take a look at what’s worked for you before. Why did it work? Were you working toward looking fabulous at your wedding and restricting your diet and fitting in small workouts when you could? Did you have a great partner to walk with at your lunch hour a few times a week? Did you love your gym and the people you saw while getting your sweat on?

Once you’ve remembered your greatest moments in fitness, figure out if you can replicate them. You may want to determine when you are most stressed or surrounded by specific triggers and see if you can distance yourself from them. Try to create surroundings similar to environments and scenarios that encouraged your good habits in the past.

2. Find the Missing Piece

Once you’ve logged those happy, healthy, and fit moments, try to determine if anything else is missing. I would bet there are a few holes in your fitness plan, so I’d recommend becoming more intentional with your actions.

If you’ve stopped tracking your goals and recording your progress, it’s time to step back and start documenting. As I’ve said before, setting goals is the key to succeeding in any endeavor, especially in fitness. Your goals can be centered on a specific body part, your total body fat percentage or weight (though I discourage this one because a pound of muscle weighs the same as a pound of fat), or a physical challenge you’d like to complete by a certain date. Really, it can be anything. But just make sure you have a goal and ways to measure your progress.

Here are ways to measure your progress:

• Snap regular selfies (you don’t have to post them on Instagram) capturing your changing body.
• Take measurements with a tape measure.
• Take (or have a trained expert) measure your body fat percentage.
• Track your food intake.

I’d encourage you to find one or two things to focus on and can bet that once you meet those goals, magic will happen and other things will fall into place.

3. Be Honest With Yourself

If you are looking for a magic formula, it might be because you want to maintain the same, less-than-healthy lifestyle you currently have while also gaining muscle and losing inches. You want to drink unlimited glasses of wine, skip workouts when you don’t feel like getting out of bed, and raid the pantry at 10 p.m. when you’ve had a bad day. Well, I have to tell you, it’s time to get real.

Ask yourself these questions:

• Are you eating to 80 percent full or continuing to eat just because there’s food on the table?
• Are you phoning in your workouts or missing workouts regularly?
• Are you labeling everything as a “special occasion” and allowing yourself every treat and cocktail because you have a bad case of FOMO (Fear of Missing Out)?
• Are you stumbling along the slippery slope, aware that your habits have waned?

To make your own magic, you’ve got to be honest with yourself. Re-frame your mentality and only indulge when it’s actually a treat, not when it’s a day that ends in Y. If you’re struggling with your priorities and body composition, go back to #2 and create some new goals and ways to measure them. Get back in the game.

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Now I don’t like to toot my own horn, but if you’re looking to make some magic of your own, our PFACT (Performance Fitness Accountability and Tracking) sessions might be the key to discovering a formula for fitness. (It’s not pulling a rabbit from a hat, of course, but it’s a good way to hold yourself accountable.)

PFACT sessions occur monthly and all boot camp and personal training members can have them as a part of their membership. We talk about successes and challenges with you and devise a goal and action steps for the coming month. Our clients have found it to be a great way to commit to their fitness goals, and they’re no longer looking for a magic spell to transform their lives.

Interested? Give me a call at 610-649-4900 to set up a free no obligation consultation.