I got a question on where do I get the motivation to complete my 30 days challenge or even my workout routine. To start off, I get really upset when I don’t feel good about myself. For example, seeing your stomach bludging out.
So I was really very anxious getting back to shape, hence overwork myself with a pull on my thigh muscle and hemstring. Unfortunately or fortunately, I have to cease all my activities, even my beloved badminton for two weeks. Since then, I really took the time off to rest at the same time, to reflect and revise my strategies.
So a few take-back pointers after my injuries:
1) Learn to accept and like yourself and your body.
This occurs to me when I hurt myself. No matter how fat I think I am or how much I want to improve on badminton, I should not have put my body to the test. Now I have learn to accept that there is just so much that I can do.
Having this mindset is very important as it sets the foundation right.
Action plan: Set small milestones. My milestone is to reduce 0.5kg weekly. Having a small goal instantly relieve the stress of the thought to cut a few kg at one go. So is easier to plan for baby steps. I also identify which part of my body that I wanted to workout more to build on my agility.
2) Understand what caused the inefficiencies.
I was really puzzled. I exercised regularly and try to eat as little as possible. But I find that my body did not react the way I wanted. In fact, my weight went up. It was quite demoralizing. So I went to read up lots of fitness articles, understand what went wrong and correct it.
Action plan: Correcting my eating habit. I find that as soon as I cut down potato chips or snacking, reducing the level of sodium intake, my body feels better. I still snack but mostly on apples and digestive biscuits. Digestive biscuits aren’t really that healthy but in comparison to other chips, is a better choice. In fact I just bought wholemeal cracker to replace it. Anyway is just taking baby steps to cut down on my unhealthy snacking.
3) Understand the logic about input and output.
I have a weak mind. My mouth usually intake more than what my stomach wanted. This contributed to my unhealthy snacking.
Action plan: Plan in advance on your food intake and exercise regime best in written form. I planned my weekly schedule and food intake on an excel sheet in Google doc so that I can update anytime. I’m also able to plan how much exercise I should do for the week in order to avoid further injuries.
4) Having the right motivation.
Setting small milestones ain’t enough. You need to have more push factors. So I have a few colleagues who are into fitness. We motivated each other on our routine. And I also have my own role model, Eunjung from Tara. She lost 7kg despite being lean and skinny already.
Action plan: Whenever I find myself losing motivation especially during the abs challenge, I will start listening to Eunjung or look at her instagram. During sit-ups, it helps a lot.
5) Be happy and not stress.
I was kinda frustrated when I didn’t play my badminton the way I wanted, or hit my desired weight goal. It leads me to giving up, indulge on more unhealthy stuff, leading to even worse outcome.
Action plan: Since I set to achieve 0.5kg weekly and on overall reduce 6kg. Do your math, you will know you need 3 months or 12 weeks to complete. So I set my mind to follow through 12 weeks. On each week, review my plan and monitor my body condition. Learn to include some food reward in my plan too. I felt happier when I completed my small milestones.
What you should not do:
- Starving yourself – Never! You need energy to burn fat!
Listen to your stomach. When you feel hungry, you eat. Choose your food wisely though. Since I need lots of protein and fibre to strengthen my muscles for badminton, my diet mainly consist of vegetables, tofus and meats. I don’t like too leafy vegetables, so I will pick and eat a lot of vegetables that I don’t mind eating. Choose fish over chicken, and avoid pork. I have a bad habit of snacking. So I switch my snacking from chips to apples and oranges. On occasions, I do allow myself to take in light biscuits. - Weighing yourself every now and then
I used to look at the scale on a daily basis. This has proven to be a wrong move, because if it goes down by a little I will tend to feel console and eat more. If it went up, I will feel stress about it. And numbers on the scale tend to be deceiving. Feeling the changes in your body, fitting your clothes better are all evidences that you are on the right track.
Conclusion
With a right mind and right attitude, leads to good outcomes. Take more baby steps and cultivate them into a habit. It works really well for me. And I have just achieved my weekly milestone! Upcoming with a challenging Taiwan trip in between my diet and workout plan.
Will continue to post updates on my twitter!
PS: This post was written on my Tab S. Formatting was done on my computer. I don’t really like typing on S for now. Am still waiting for my bluetooth keyboard.