So, You’ve Reached Your Fitness Goals. Now What?
We talk a lot about how to get to your fitness goals. But this is only half the battle. Once you reach the end point, you still need to maintain it, otherwise you will end up exactly where you started.
What you do when you reach your goals depends on how you achieved them. If you take a gradual approach, gradually changing your lifestyle and habits, it will be much easier. This is because you have integrated change into your life, so in order to stay in it, all you have to do is support it (sorry, there is no way out of this!)
But this is not for everyone. Whether you are on a drastic calorie-reduction diet, have tried extreme exercise, or tried juice cleanse (which is, by the way, a terrible way to lose weight), some methods simply cannot be sustained for a lifetime. So how do you preserve these results without killing yourself in the process?
First, it is important to understand that the more extreme the method, the less likely you are to completely retain the results. Admit it and don’t get angry with yourself if you see yourself backing down a little. Self-blaming will only hurt your motivation in the future.
Then start making changes based on the strategy you used to get to where you are:
- If you are on a restrictive diet, estimate your new calorie intake and gradually increase your intake toward that goal until your weight stabilizes.
- If you’ve done an intense exercise program like P90X or Insanity, start lowering your frequency and replace a few workouts with softer exercises to avoid injury. Also, cut back on your calorie intake to compensate for the unburned calories.
Finally, be patient. As with everything in fitness, you need to make incremental changes – essentially, the strategy is to fix the lifestyle that you missed in the first place.
But whichever route you choose, reaching your goal is not a reason for a complete stop.
Like everything in life, fitness is all about growth, and maintaining the desire to improve is just as important as maintaining tangible results. Find new goals, develop and keep striving for improvement. This is the best way to stay successful.