New Year: new you, right? How many times have we made that promise to ourselves? But by the time we get to February, we’ve all but given up.
Let’s just wait until next year and go through the whole process again, shall we? Well, no actually.
The time to make a change is now.
But just when you decide to stand your ground, dig deep, and do what it takes, you discover there's a flood of information out there. All that info can be pretty overwhelming.
Especially if you are new to the health and fitness industry. It’s hard to know who you can trust and who you should be listening to.
Bad information can lead you down the wrong path and set you on the road of disappointment and failure.
That's why I’m giving you my top 5 tips curated over the last 20 years of real-life experience as a health, fitness, and nutrition expert.
These tips won’t do the hard work for you, but they will make your life easier and help you take steps toward your goals.
So, dive in, and let’s get you the results you deserve.
Top Tip 1: Fix Your Diet
First, let’s bust a myth. A diet is not something you go on and it’s not something you do. Your diet is everything you consume during the day. If you consume more energy than you burn, you put on weight in the form of fat, if you burn more energy than you eat, you start using up your fat stores and lose weight.
Here are 2 rules to live by. If you take nothing else away from this article, focus on these 2 things.
- A calorie deficit will help you burn unwanted fat by forcing your body to top up your energy needs with your existing fat store.
- Weight and fat are not the same. If you want to do a safe experiment to prove this at home, weigh yourself before you drink a liter of water and then weigh yourself straight after… the results may surprise you…
Top Tip 2: Get Enough Sleep
Sadly, as a member of the ape family, we don’t have the luxury of being able to sleep with one eye open and half our brain awake like some reptiles in the animal kingdom.
That means you prioritize good quality sleep for about 7-8 hours per day. Why? Well, any of these reasons for starters.
✅You're less likely to get sick.
✅Reduce your risk of serious health problems, such as diabetes and heart disease.
✅Improve your mood and reduce stress.
✅You will be able to think more clearly and perform better at work or school.
✅Improve your interpersonal skills.
Quality sleep also helps prevent you from making poor food choices and binge eating at night.
Top Tip 3: Get Enough H20
Your body is about 76% water. Just a 2% decrease in hydration can cause a 20% decrease in concentration. When we aren’t able to concentrate, we tend to make poor choices regarding food.
Water is also crucial for muscle function and performance levels. Our bodies are unable to tell the difference between thirst and hunger. Often we think we are hungry when actually we are thirsty. The benefits of this miracle liquid don’t stop there. Water has ZERO calories and it acts as an appetite suppressant keeping hunger at bay.
Upping your water intake is one of the smartest things you can do to help you achieve your fitness goals.
Top Tip 4: Consistency
Achieving your fitness resolutions doesn’t happen overnight. Like many things in life, you get out what you put in. So, enjoying the process and tracking your results is a great way to stay motivated and ensure you can go the distance and don’t drop off like so many others.
Stay motivated by incentivizing your daily/weekly goals. Whenever you reach a milestone in the process, reward yourself. Go treat yourself to a beach treat after you cross "No beach party until I hit/cut an extra 25 pounds" off your list. Do what feels right for you without ruining the process. Keep in mind that consistency is the key to making your fitness dreams a reality.
Or… consistency is king, as they say.
Top Tip 5: Boost Your Results With The Right Supplementation
While we’re yet to celebrate that magic pill that does all the hard work for you, the right supplementation can give you a big boost toward your goals.
How?
By ensuring your body has everything it needs to perform at its best. A protein supplement can aid recovery and muscle growth, a sleep supplement can improve the quality of sleep, and a fat-loss supplement can help to suppress the appetite and make it easier to stay in a calorie deficit.
Put simply, the right supplementation will help you achieve your goals faster, and with less effort…but YOU still have to be the one that makes it happen.
There is a lot of ‘fake news’ about supplements with many unethical ‘gooroos’ selling inferior quality products with ridiculous and impossible promises. Supplements are not a replacement for hard work. In fact the word supplement means something added to something else to improve or enhance it…
…and that’s exactly what they can do for you.
Bonus Tip: Know your why.
The ‘WHY’ is important when it comes to achieving any goal in life. So before you set off on your new year’s fitness journey ask yourself, “why am I doing this?”
“Who is it for?”
“Why do I need to make this change now?”
Whenever things get tough, remember your why and follow the tips here in the article.
- Fix your diet.
- Get enough sleep.
- Drink enough water.
- Be consistent.
- Get the right supplements.
- Know your why.
One final note: we are all different. We all start our journeys at different points. Some of us have good knowledge about health and fitness, while others don’t.
Focus on you: your goals and your mission. This is your race to run and you are the only one that can run it.
If you need advice on where to start, you’re welcome to take my supplement quiz here. It only takes a few minutes and will give you all the info you need to make the right choice for you.
If you already know what you’re looking for, you can find the highest-quality supplements here.
Whatever your goal, make 2023 the year you achieve it, and reach out to me if you need any further advice.
Mike (CEO of MMSN- Stone Mountain)
678-344-1501