Today we wanted to take some time to talk about setting yourself up for success… meeting your goals in unprecedented times. We’ve talked about this before, but with this still being close to the beginning of the year and the insanity that is the world that surrounds us, we wanted to touch on this again.

BEGINNING YOUR JOURNEY FROM A PLACE OF LOVE

1. We have mentioned before that a lot of us start our journeys because we got sick and tired of being sick and tired, or because we hated ourselves and our bodies. I wanted to talk about the importance of starting from a place of love for yourself.
   • By changing the framing, it sets you up for longer term success. Think about it: if you hate something and you start out anything from that reference point, how long have you typically stuck with it, whatever that may be? If you go in because you hate something, it doesn’t last very long. At least it doesn’t for me.
2. Learning to love ourselves for who we are RIGHT NOW is a difficult task. Sometimes it takes continuous reframing to get there. But, by accepting ourselves for who we are right now, at whatever point we are at on our journey, is important. Not only for our mental health, but just for appreciation for what our bodies can do right now, at this very moment.
   • Of course you aren’t where you want to be on your journey right now. That’s OK! The point is starting it or picking it back up because of where you WANT to go. That’s why we stress making a list of smaller goals that are achievable to further you on your non-linear path.
   • That’s another thing to keep in mind and remind yourself of. This journey in fitness and nutrition is rarely, if ever, linear. There are peaks and valleys, and you aren’t always going to see the results immediately. That’s the point. By treating your body better and appreciating it for the machine it is, it will change in time and get you to where you want to go.

MAKING IT WORK WITH WHAT YOU HAVE

1. Gyms may not be open in your area/ you may not be comfortable going
   • There are great deals at gyms the beginning of the year. We may have to do some research on this, but I know, Crunch for example, you can sign up and then freeze your account and still pay the promotional price. Freezing your account just means they don’t charge you until you unfreeze it, but the promotional price stays intact. That way you can still get an awesome deal on a gym membership, but wait until you’re comfortable going
2. You can find items around your house to add weight to movements
   • If you’re wanting movements to be more challenging, there are a ton of things around your house you can use to accomplish that. A bag of a dog food, a backpack filled with books or cans, a jug of laundry detergent. You can use canned food as a dumbbell, or even a gallon water jug. Be creative!
   • It’s not necessarily easy or cost effective to set yourself up with a home gym, here are some inexpensive items to make movements more difficult, if that’s where you are at
3. We have some of these items on our website meathead test kitchen dot com, which links to our Amazon store.
   • Things like resistance bands are typically less than 20 bucks, they come in different sizes, tensions and can be used for a ton of movements. A jump rope can add a full body movement that gets your heartrate up. If you want to invest in dumbbells, they can get expensive with the more they weigh, but if you don’t feel like lifting your laundry detergent, it might be something you could look into
   • You can make any movement more difficult with body weight by adding pauses and/or more reps. By doing the movement slower, adding pauses and/or adding more repetitions, you’re increasing your time under tension, and time under tension is great for building muscle

PAYING ATTENTION TO YOUR NEGATIVE (SELF-SABOTAGING) BEHAVIORS

1. Try to stop comparing yourself to other people.
   • This one is difficult, especially with social media. Remember, your body, is your body. It takes time to be accepting of it, but working toward loving what you have is a mental and physical game changer. A lot of times, the way your muscle builds is genetic. You may never have a six pack, you may never have super huge quads, or shoulders, or biceps. But YOU know the work you’ve put in. Being accepting of your body and it’s capabilities is freeing and will help you on your journey. Love yourself! You’re amazing and capable of hard, and awesome things.
2. Is it that you can’t or you won’t?
   • This one is a toughy, too. It comes down to mindset. Is that you cannot physically do a push up, or that extra rep, or is it that you won’t. There is a difference. Someone said this to me once, and it really stuck with me. Especially on the shitty, not great workout days. Is it that I physically can’t do this, or more, or is it that I won’t do it because I don’t want to try?
   • Fear is a limiter. Fear is also necessary to being a human being. Being scared of starting a journey or a new workout program or a different way of eating is normal. Especially if any of those things are something you haven’t done before. BUT, accepting that fear and pushing yourself forward is one of the best feelings on this earth. The reward and the outcomes on walking through that fear and coming out the other side better for it is something that’s hard to explain in words. It just feels awesome.  “Fuck yes, I did it despite myself!”
   • If you have time to watch 3 episodes of a show, you have time to move your body for 30 minutes. I think a lot of times it’s easy to make the excuse that we don’t have time for things. But, we make time for the things that are important to us. What is important to you? Can you watch one less episode of that show on netflix and move your body instead or meal prep?
3. If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.
   • I heard this on another podcast and it really stuck with me: you’re not going to go into the gym and make up a gym session on the spot. Like, you’re just not going to. We kind of touched on this in a couple episodes when we were talking about calculating your total daily energy expenditure or TDEE: it’s not what you WANT to do, it’s what ARE you doing.
   • Having a plan in place for your gym routine is really important. Do a little homework and find something that makes you think, “I can do that” and then do it. 
4. Pick a time of day that you know you can make work and can commit to.
   • Take 20 minutes on a Sunday and plan out your meals for the week. Even just what you’re going to have for dinner each day is a step forward in your journey
   • Love yourself enough to begin your journey in a positive space. We all get to where we’re going, baby step and small goal by small goal. 

I keep saying this, and we should just make it a shirt, but I think it’s a good illustration: you have to have snowflakes to build your snowman. Everything starts with small goals and leads to the bigger goal/picture. 

You have this. You are an amazing human machine. If you commit to yourself and doing the thing, you’re going to get there, and we’re here to cheer you on to the next goal. Email us.