As you can imagine, we receive a large number of enquiries from people who are seeking to lose weight and get in the best shape of their life. I am the person who speaks to potential personal training clients to discuss their goals and to assess whether or not they would benefit from our personal training services.
Before initiating training, it is common for someone to ask me at what point they should begin training. Often there are perceived obstacles in the way such as:
- A business trip
- A birthday party
- A family get-together
- Waiting for food shopping day
- Lack of exercise experience
- Not enough knowledge on exercise and nutrition
- Lack of preparation for weight loss
…and the list goes on.
In all of these situations, the best time to begin losing weight remains the same:
RIGHT NOW
Almost without exception, if you want to lose weight (or accomplish any health/fitness goal for that matter), the best time to get started is immediately. Delaying this start date simply delays results. This procrastination inhibits you from accomplishing your goals.
Think about it this way – to accomplish a health and fitness goal, you need to do something. Doing nothing is not going to get you anywhere. Sure, an intelligent and effective approach is optimal, yet doing anything at all is going to be better than nothing.
Creative Procrastination
There are two major obstacles that, from my discussions with clients and potential clients, I have found inhibit people from actually getting started:
- An upcoming event
- Over preparation
An Upcoming Event Inhibiting You From Losing Weight
An upcoming event could be anything to do with a particular date. This could include your birthday party, the festive season, a holiday, having to go to the shops, a business event, next week and so on. This is anything that is coming up that you feel will inhibit your momentum on your weight loss journey. Consequently, it is easy to rationalise that it would be more beneficial to wait for this event to occur prior to initiating your weight loss efforts.
The fact is that in almost all situations, this method of thinking is exactly what has hindered you from losing weight in the past. It is an excuse in disguise and serves no purpose but to stop you from actually getting started. If you are absolutely and utterly determined and dedicated to losing weight, then you will not allow this event to stand in your way of accomplishing your weight loss goals. This means getting started now and accommodating for this event when it occurs. Here are some practical examples:
- Your birthday party: Make smarter food choices, decrease portion sizes, avoid excessive alcohol.
- Going to the shops: Make the most of the foods you currently have available. Lack of ideal food choices should also not inhibit you from exercising.
- A holiday: You’re going to feel better on your holiday if you get started now and lose just a little bit of weight. Plus, a holiday does not mean that you cease exercising and stuff yourself silly. You’ll feel much better if you stay active.
Weight loss is a long-term project. Events will come up all the time and no one will ever have a perfect run at weight loss without interruption. Your success is greatly determined by how you accommodate for event based obstacles and utilise a flexible approach within your lifestyle. Allowing events to inhibit you from losing weight will almost certainly result in you not achieving your potential.
Over Preparation Inhibiting You From Losing Weight
Many people attempt to lose weight without having the slightest clue about nutrition and exercise. Educating yourself is therefore extremely important to accomplishing a health and fitness goal. This is why education is such a focal point of our personal training services. So whilst it is very important to know “how” to lose weight, you have to be careful not to use this as an excuse to over prepare and delay your weight loss efforts.
You see, when you set out to accomplish a health and fitness goal, a substantial portion of the learning occurs from the “doing” rather than the theoretical work involved. This is primarily due to your body being so unique that it will respond more effectively to some training and nutritional approaches than others. Thus knowing how your body responds is going to determine the degree of success that you experience. The only way to know this is to actually begin exercising and eating in a more appropriate manner.
If you have hired a personal trainer, then you don’t need to prepare at all – your personal trainer will do all the ground-work for you. Once started though, you will benefit by reading abroad and learning about the science and theory behind exercise and nutrition. Your trainer can act as a mentor in this field, as they would have been formally trained in these area’s of science.
So whilst it is important to set goals and plan, preparing for weight loss should not be counter-productive to you losing weight.
The Best Time To Begin Losing Weight is NOW!
So remember that every day you delay, that is one day longer that you have to wait to realise your goals. If you’re considering putting off weight loss, ask yourself why and determine whether or not this is actually advantageous for you.
Share on Facebook
