Don’t make someone else’s body your goals.You are amazing and beautiful. If you are fan-girling too hard you will miss the mark and never even be proud of your own progress. Be your own motivation.
Keep it simple.You don’t have to do a one-legged deadlift with a 50 pound kettlebell while balancing on a BOSU ball to build muscle. The basics gets results. Squats, mountain climbers, bicep curls, push ups, lunges. Start there.
Keep it short. You are wasting your time running on the treadmill for over an hour. During prolonged steady-state cardio your body starts burning through your muscles and depleting your glycogen stores so you are no longer in the fat burning zone. Now you’re just burning through your muscle. We need your muscle to burn fat. Keep your cardio interval style. Try a 1-minute sprint, then a 1-minute walk. This will increase your aerobic capacity and get you to burn major calories.
Don’t starve yourself. Too many people are going 6-7 hours without food thinking it will help them shed a couple of pounds but it won’t. Your body is depending on fuel to function properly. In order to maximize the efforts of your hard work in the gym, you must eat like you love yourself.
Don’t go too hard too fast. In order for this to become a lifestyle you have to work towards longevity. It is a marathon not a sprint. Stretch well and take rest days so you don’t burn out.
Get an accountability partner (hiring a trainer counts for this too). Without accountability there is no consequence for your inactivity.
Put the work in and stop looking for overnight results. You can slow down but you can’t quit.
Caprice O’Bryant is the founder of Excuse Free Fitness. Learn more at excusefreefitness.com