Fitness Inspiration

You're getting ready to get healthy, you've picked your goal weight and now you're looking for some inspiration.

How? By looking online at fitness models that share the same body shape as you.

This is all well and good, but don't confuse inspiration with comparing yourself to others.

If you're going to be staring at this person's picture every single day thinking, "I wish I looked like this person". Then you've fallen into the habit of comparing yourself to others.

How Comparing Yourself To Others Hurt Your Training

If you're comparing yourself to others whether it be online on via the television set, you're going to lower your self esteem. One of the goals of getting healthy should definitely be to boost your self confidence.

Wishing you looked like someone else is hardly the way to go about being happy in your own skin.

How To Properly Inspire Yourself

Stop looking at that picture so much!

It's great to set a goal and pick a role model, but you are only going to want to look at that photo once per month.

A lot can happen in a month and the saying "A watched pot never boils" applies here. This means the more time you spend looking at that picture and practicing wishful thinking, the less time you're spending focusing on your goal.

Sure, take a glance at that role model at the end of the month and tell yourself "I'm almost there". Even if you've still got 100 lbs to lose you're going to feel much better about yourself when you tell yourself something positive instead of telling yourself you aren't good enough.

When you're feeling like giving up or ditching your diet, THAT would be a good time to pull out that photo and look at what you want and remind yourself what you have to do to get there.

One Day At A Time

Don't think about your fitness schedule for the week. People get overwhelmed and think "Oh no, I have to do all this stuff THIS week!". It's not very encouraging!

Take your fitness goals a day at a time. Keep your workout schedule handy just to ensure you are doing the right fitness sessions, but don't stare at the entire calendar every night before bed because you're going to start to dread the week's plans. This is going to make it more likely that you're going to abandon them completely.

If you need to, write out your "to-do" list that includes your general activity and simply add the fitness session for that day only to your list. This way, the project doesn't seem so big.

Slow and steady wins the race.

Pretend You're Already Where You Want To Be

During your fitness sessions, pretend you already have those washboard abs, pretend you've already lost the 50lbs you've been aiming for.

As adults we have slowly abandoned our imaginations! This is inspiring because it makes you feel as if you've already succeeded and there's nothing that provides a self esteem boost and inspiration than a sense of accomplishment.

I wouldn't recommend you go around bragging to your friends how much weight you've lost when you're inspiring yourself, but make this your time and your personal treat to yourself.

You'll feel weird at first, but it becomes addictive and this is a good habit to have especially if you are usually giving yourself negative self talk.