Crushing the Christmas Calories

By: Joel Guevarra

Joel has been in the health and fitness industry for over 10 years starting as a fitness assistant and moving his way to Strength and Conditioning Coach for many elite athletes.  These days Joel continues to train athletes but has added Brazilian Jiu Jitsu student and Cygen Labs Brand Manager to his resume. Enjoy his latest blog post!! 

  

So now that the Christmas tree is put away and the cookies are all gone (hopefully), it is now time to ring in 2013.  With every new year comes new year’s resolutions.  Most of us look to better our health and fitness so here are some tips to keep you on track and not “fall of the wagon” in February. 

Firstly, I’ll be honest with you...I know that this is a blog about new year’s resolutions but I do NOT believe in them especially when it comes to health and fitness.  I think you should ALWAYS look to better yourself all year and not just starting January 1st...So maybe let’s change the term “New Year’s Resolution” to “All Year Transformation”.  Keep this in mind when you are grinding it out at the gym.

So here are a couple tips that will help you achieve your goals and maintain them.

1.    Set a definitive goal.  Just saying that you’re going to lose weight isn’t enough.  Instead of staying “I’m going to lose weight” say “I will lose 15 pounds by March 1^st”. This gives you a deadline and a number to reach. 

2.       Be unique in the gym.  It’s easy to compare yourself to others in the gym (especially this time of year when the gym is packed with new years resolution’ers).  Just because the person beside you is squatting 315 or running on the treadmill at neck breaking speeds doesn't mean you have to.  Remember that you are completely different from them so workout at your own pace and do things you enjoy doing such as bootcamps, zumba, yoga, hi intensity circuits but whatever the workout always work out hard.   

3.       Be unique in the kitchen.  Everyone likes different food and has different body types so you don’t have to eat the same way as the guy or girl sitting next to you at the gym.  Get creative with your clean eating so you can have fun and enjoy your food. 

4.       Pre-cook all your meals.  There is nothing worse than coming home from a workout to find out there is nothing to eat.  This is when majority of people cheat on their diet.  Pick a day when you can cook a bunch of meals for the week so you don't have to worry about those unscheduled cheat days.  Mine is Sunday's...why you ask?   it's my training off day and well....football is on and since I'll be inside watching the games, I might as well doing something productive right? 

5.       Focus and visualize.  Picture how wonderful it will be when you reach that goal.  How happy you’d be, how easy it will be to do things that you might not of been able to do before, and the looks you’ll get when you show of the “new” you. 

 

This is a great starting point for your journey to your “All Year Transformation”.  Again I am saying all year because your journey doesn’t end just at one goal.  You have to maintain it and go on to the next!

Happy 2013 everyone and see you all in the gym!  TRAIN HARD AND TRAIN SMART!!!