Hi guys, Kris from Custom Fitness here, your Amarillo personal trainer. Today we’re going to be talking about the beauty of positive progress today. If you have any questions about today’s blog, then please give us a call at (806)-322-3188
What on earth does that even mean? Well, we come into this idea of getting in shape, getting healthy, with this black and white picture where everything is going to go from large to extra small in a matter of minutes, right? We want that instantaneous gratification. We expect ourselves to be perfect. By golly, we’ve dedicated ourselves to it. We’re ready to move forward and there’s no reason that we can’t, if we just put our minds to it.
We’ve talked about willpower many times in the past. And if you haven’t heard those, feel free to check out those blogs. But kind of a quick recap is that our willpower is only so strong. It only last for so long and then eventually, it gives out on us. And we’ve got to live on other things like determination and energy and motivation. Willpower will get us so far. But we’ve really got to have that plan going forward. So, when you come into health and wellness, wanting to change your body, your life and your health, you’ve got to know that there is a lot of room for gray.
We don’t focus on perfection, because nobody can ever hit that perfect model for more than just a little while, right? So, if you’re looking at hitting that perfect model consistently for the rest of your life, you should really just stop now because it’s not going to happen. You can hold on for a long time, I even met a man recently who was on a 450-calorie a day diet for a two-month period. He did great with it as far as willpower, he stuck to it. But you know what? One slip up, it was one day of going out with his family and all of a sudden, the whole thing went. It was gone and he was not able to continue that anymore.
Not to mention that during those two months of that 450-calorie a day diet, he had little to no energy, couldn’t exercise, he couldn’t do much other than sleep and barely do his work. His brain wasn’t functioning at a high level. So, it’s not always best to push the willpower. Sometimes we have to throw in a little common sense too. So, common sense tells me that instead of making progress from point A to point B at a straight line, what it’s going to do is it’s going to ebb and flow. That ebb and flow is going to be on a continuous path downward, but it is going to ebb and flows. So, it’s not going to always be 90 to nothing. Instead, sometimes you’re going to slow down 20 miles an hour, and then you can pick speed back up.
Here at Custom Fitness, we focus on 1% better, not perfect. We want our clients to work on improving day by day, whether that’s in exercise, it’s in nutrition, or if it’s just in general lifestyle habits. Improving one step at a time. I had a lady came in recently, she had missed her nutrition session with me, and I checked in with her to see when can we reschedule that? And she says, “Oh, honey, I haven’t made enough progress to come and talk to you. I haven’t been doing what you told me to.”
So, we sat down for a minute, we talked about what have you been doing? Well, I have increased my water. I have stopped drinking cokes, I haven’t had any Gatorade or sports drinks. I have been making sure that I’m eating three times a day, to which we celebrated. Those are huge improvements over where she started from.
But, she wasn’t seeing them as improvements because she was seeing black or white and she hadn’t made it yet from the black into the white. That gray is such a huge area for success that people pass it by all the time. The human brain craves that. It craves that black and white again from large results, or from large to extra small on results. But the human body actually acts more like a roll of paper towels. If you think about it, if you were to take a roll of paper towels, think about those select-a-size ones, right? You’re holding that role of paper towels. And every day, you tear off one towel. Then over 30 days, can you tell a huge difference between that and a full roll? Maybe, maybe not. It’s kind of hard to tell, right.
But then you keep going. You tear off one today for 60 days. Now you can start to see a difference, right? You tear off one day for 90 days. Now you’ve got a big difference. It’s cumulative over time. In order to get that cumulative effect, we have to work on 1% better. If you try to take a full towel roll and rip them off one by one in like 30 seconds, you’re probably not going to make it very far, right? That’s kind of the equivalent of starting a program and expecting change to be huge within a day, a week, whatever it may be.
We have to understand that our bodies move at a different rate than our brains. And that we really need to focus on that positive progress. Because every step forward that you take is a chance to celebrate success, it’s a chance to see that you’re making a dent in this new lifestyle that you’re wanting, and that you’re actually moving forward rather than backwards. I was raised to believe that we always move forward or we’re moving backwards. It’s really never a point in physics where you’re standing still, right? We’re always moving forward or backwards. And so, if you’re moving forwards, even if it’s teeny tiny steps, you eventually will get to where you want to be. But if you stop moving or you stop trying, then you start to sink backwards into old habits.
Remember that today, move forward with positive progress. And for goodness sakes, please celebrate every success that you have because you are so worth it. Make sure to celebrate that with different things. Hanging out with friends, going shopping for new clothes to work out, getting you a phone call with somebody you haven’t had a phone call with in a while, instead of always using food. Because sometimes food becomes our reward, and that can also lead to our demise.
The one place that I would say maybe add some food in for our success would be to have a question party or a meal prep party, where everybody gets together and makes meals for the next week and then you share them. That’s a great way to have some success, be able to celebrate some things and make next week even better.
So, if you are wanting the accountability and help with creating an action plan to see results, or are wanting to someone to help create a workout plan to push you to your greatest potential, then that’s what we’re here for. We work with our clients not just on fitness, but also nutrition. What we do is we will ensure that you are supported throughout every aspect of your health and wellness journey, and that includes making those eating changes. We have an entire team of dedicated professionals to help you with your health and fitness goals. To get your consultation set up, give us a call at 806-322-3188 or email us at info@customfitness.biz At Custom Fitness, we are YOUR personal trainers in Amarillo, Texas. Have a great day.