Revolutionize your fitness attitude.
By Beatrice Springborn
If the purpose for your workouts is looking good in a bikini next summer, you're compromising the potential effects of fitness on your brain or body. Focusing on short-term results makes a gal prone to overcompensating for setbacks and burn out. Here are a five simple ways to revolutionize your fitness attitude and reap improved mental and physical results:
1. Set goals (small and large) to measure success “A goal gives your workouts purpose, something to strive for that is easily attainable and a reason for being at the gym,” says Nikki Marty, a personal trainer and conditioning specialist at Savvy Fitness in Folsom, CA. “This would best be a performance related goal such as getting stronger for the upcoming ski season.”
Marty says that for example, if you'd like to be able to ski moguls (bumps on ski slopes formed by skiers passing over the same spot) next year, you would need to work on core and leg strength. You can also set small goals. Instead of focusing on the 5, 10 or 100 pounds you have to lose, focus on the immediate future. Try for a mini-goal each week like adding 10 minutes to a run, lifting one more set of weights or trying one new class. You'll feel more successful when you've actually achieved something small rather than let down when you don't lose five pounds in one week.
You can also compete with yourself by trying to increase endurance and strength with each workout. The important thing is you're always making some kind of improvement. After you achieve your mini-goal, work up to a larger goal like completing the AIDS ride or running a 5k.
2. Buddy UpFind people who have a positive body image and view fitness as a way of life, not just a means to weight loss. These people typically look forward to their workouts and schedule them as they would a dinner date or massage. The person you buddy up with can also be somebody at the same fitness level or with the same insecurities about working out.
Debby Burgard is the author of “Great Shape: The First Fitness Guide for Large Women” (w/ Pat Lyons) and also runs a non-profit organization called The Body Positive based in Berkeley, California that works to help teens and children with body image issues. As part of group therapy, she has people meet together and decide on an activity one person wanted to try but are too self-conscious to attempt. This can be anything from riding horses, to getting a massage to trying a new gym.
“The group gets together and exchanges reactions,” she says. “This creates a less toxic culture than the broader culture and makes the new experience less scary because the whole group tries it together.”
3. Read your body, not the scale “A person's fitness level can never be determined by a scale,” says Nikki Marty. “The scale, along with percent body fat and circumference measurements, helps determine one's body composition. A person's fitness level can be measured by tracking the progress to the strength increases for the muscular system and cardiovascular system.”
Marty suggests tracking strength increase by keeping a log of weight used for a specific number of reps per each exercise. For example, week #1 you could bench press 30 pounds for 12 reps and 3 weeks later you can bench press 45 pounds for 12 reps, which means you're getting stronger.
For the cardiovascular system, she suggests using a heart rate monitor when exercising and notice over the weeks that at specific workloads your heart rate lowers. For example, week #1 while walking at 4 mph on the treadmill you notice your heart rate is 145 beats per minute (bpm) and your perceived level of exertion (PLE) at that heart rate is a 7 on a scale of 1-10 (1 = very easy and 10 = very hard). Now, 3 weeks later, at the same speed on the treadmill you notice that your heart rate is now 137 bpm and your PLE is a 5, which means your fitness level is improving!
As you continue to work out, you'll also notice increased energy, as well as improved posture, balance and coordination. You'll also have better functional strength (i.e. climbing stairs, picking up boxes, carrying groceries).
4. Boycott Negative ReinforcementTake a break from your weight-obsessed friends. People who watch everything they eat and exercise compulsively can suck you into their world.
“When you have people standing around you saying ‘Ugh, I'm so fat,' it's like second-hand smoke,” Burgard says. “You need to say something and step out of the prison of these negative thoughts.”
The last thing you need when you're trying to stay positive and on track with your fitness goals is somebody or something discouraging you. Negative reinforcement can come in many forms, including mean relatives, the scale and even gym mirrors. A study published in Health Psychology found that women who exercised in front of a mirror for 20 minutes felt less energized, less relaxed and less positive and upbeat than women who performed their workout without a mirror. The worst offenders are women's magazines, which often show images of bodies that are completely unattainable for the average woman.
“Consumers need to know that reading these may work against the goal you have,” Burgard says, “When you are trying to establish a greater awareness of your internal experience, it's good to turn the volume down on this stuff.”
5. Experiment and Enjoy!“Most people have negative experiences in junior high PE glass or at their gyms that get in the way of them believing they can have fun exercising,” Burgard says. She says the best way to combat this is to move in ways your body and personality type enjoy. You may envision yourself as a hard-core athlete, but have a mellow personality more suited to yoga. Charlene Van Ness, the Fitness and Dance Director at the Berkeley, CA YWCA, says most of their members focus on the pleasure of movement rather statistical measurements.
“People come to our dance classes and say ‘I was tired after work and now I feel good.' They come for the stress relief and social nature. They also come to reconnect with themselves physically because many of them work in offices and don't get much movement during the day.”
If you've always been a gym rat, get outside and enjoy an outdoor hike. If you're the queen of the Stairmaster, try a hip hop dance class. Breaking out of your routine will help make fitness feel fun and new.
“If you take a Brazilian dance class you might lose weight but mostly you should just have fun dancing to fabulous music and socializing with a group of interesting people,” Van Ness says.