Where do I start?

You know you want to get fit or lose weight or run a marathon, you know the outcome of your goal but there’s one burning question in your mind, “Where do I start?”

It’s ok if you think it’s a daft question but many people who come to see me have asked me that.

We all reach that point where we are fed up where we are, want to be in a better place of health and simply want to feel better about ourselves. We have a rough idea of what we think we should be aiming for – lose weight and get fit – and it’s very common not to know exactly what the outcome actually looks like let alone how to get there. All we know is that we want to feel better than we do just now.

Where do I start?

Ok, so you’ve maybe got a clear goal but the next thing is where to start. Do you join a gym? Go to some classes? Hire a Personal Trainer? Go on a diet? Get a pair of running shoes and go running?

It can be easy to get confused, if we’re not sure what we want to achieve, how do we know what to do next?

I always ask the following questions:

  1. What would you like to be able to do in 3 months time that you can’t do/stop yourself from trying just now?
  2. How would you like to feel after one week?
  3. What would be a good sign for you that what you’re doing is working?

The answers to these questions can help give meaning to the initial goals and perhaps give a better idea on what to do next.

It can be easy to become overwhelmed with all the options as each may help you get the results you want and most of them may not!
The thing to know is that you don’t necessarily need to have a massive goal set out for you to work towards straight away, you can get started and discover something that really interests you further down the line.

My tips to get started are:

    1. Move more every day – this can be measuring the number of steps you take daily and aim for a target each day, it could be to start walking 2-3 times a day for 10 minutes at a time and making at least one of them a brisk walk or something that requires you to be more active than you are just now. 
    2. Drink 2 litres of water a day, every day – Most people don’t drink enough water and drinking more water can help you reduce the amount of unhealthy snacks you eat, give you more energy and make you feel more alert throughout the day.
    3. Keep a diary and record everything you eat, drink, the activity you do and how you feel with it then try to make each day better than the one before – this is designed to let you understand everything you do, whether it’s working for you and little things you can try to change yourself and see it it works.

From there, you can decide what the next step needs to be whether its to start going to classes, join a gym or hire a Personal Trainer to help you progress but by this stage, you will have learned a lot about yourself and be in a better position than you were to begin with.

Check out:
How to Review Your Goals

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