Whether you’re trying to lose some weight, add some muscle, or improve your overall health and fitness, it all comes down to one thing: consistency.
Interestingly enough, it also seems to be the hardest part for most people.
In a recent Q&A on my Instagram, I asked what my followers biggest struggle with weight loss was. More than half of them said consistency.
You can have the best plan, trainer, and groceries in the world. But if you don’t have consistency, none of it matters.
In this article, I’m going to share with you 4 Tips To Improve Your Consistency In Fitness
So let’s dive right into it.
How To Improve Consistency In Fitness
Tip 1: Set Goals
Having a clearly defined goal is going to set you up for long term success. How can you know you’re being consistent if you don’t know what you’re trying to be consistent in?
For consistency based goals, it’s important to have process based goals rather than outcome based goals.
A process based goal is what you are going to do to try and reach your outcome based goal.
Process based goal example: I’m going to be in a calorie deficit 80% of my days
Outcome based goal example: I’m going to lose 20 pounds.
While there is nothing wrong with having an outcome based goal, you’re not going to reach that goal unless you have a process to reach it.
So setting process based goals, is how you come up with a plan to reach your outcome based goal.
Remember, a goal without a plan is just a wish.
Setting your goals is a great way to actually achieve your goals
So what should your goals look like?
Sustainable Goals
Any goal you set needs to be sustainable. There’s nothing wrong shooting high.
But if you’re setting unrealistic goals like “I want to lose 50 lbs for my sister’s wedding next Wednesday”, I’ve got some bad news.
It’s also unrealistic to set goals like “I’m going to eat 1,200 calories every single day for the month of March.”
Number one, because you should not be eating 1,200 calories unless you are a pottytrained labradoodle. Number two, because even if you were a pottytrained labradoodle, aiming for perfection is just not realistic.
The reality is, sometimes life gets in the way. And if you want a high quality of life, while trying to achieve your fitness goals, you’re going to want to allow yourself a little grace.
A better example of a realistic goal might be something like “I’m going to workout 4 days a week for the month of March.”
This allows you some flexibility to schedule your workouts, without making you insane.
Measurable Goals
How can you know you’re succeeding at your goals if you can’t measure them?
Again, if these are process based goals, this is definitely something you can measure.
If your goal is to do X thing X amount of times, then that is very easily measurable.
If your goal is something like “Meh, I wanna lose weight.”
That’s not very measurable, and it’s vague.
Exciting
Your goal should excite you.
It should be something that if you stick to that goal, you can picture how much better your life will be by working on it.
If you don’t get fired up about your goal, then you’re a lot less likely to stick to it.
How To Improve Consistency In Fitness
Tip 2: Create A Consistency Calendar
If you really want to improve your consistency in your fitness, this one is going to play a huge role.
Here’s what to do.
Go buy a paper calendar, a black marker, and a red marker.
Every day that you’ve fallen within your goals that you’ve outlined in step 1, you put a big Red X on the calendar for the day
Every day that you don’t reach those goals, you put a big Black Circle on the calendar for the day.
At the end of the month, you’ll have a very nice visual of your consistency for the month. If you see lots of red X’s and few black circles, then you’re doing great. If your black circles end up being more than 20% of the days of the month, then you have room for improvement.
Things to aim for:
- No more than six black circles in a month
- No black circles two days in a row
How To Improve Consistency In Fitness
Tip 3: Start Small
The biggest reason people fall off in fitness is because they try to go too fast too quick.
They’ll try to add every healthy habit all at once.
This is a great way to burn yourself out, and feel completely overwhelmed.
What not to do:
- Workout 7 days a week
- Eat the bare minimum amount of calories
- Restrict entire food groups
- Limit yourself to only eating in certain meal windows
This stuff above doesn’t do anything good for your fat loss.
Because it’s virtually impossible to stick to.
Now I know you may be reading this article, and thinking. That’s great and all, I’d love to start small. But what exactly should I do?
I’m glad you asked.
Here’s 3 mini-tips to get you started if you’re not sure what to do.
The 3-3-3 method
I’ve used this method with my online coaching clients, and it is tried and true.
3 plates of food each day
- This is a regular size dinner plate, you’re not eating out of a trough here.
- 1/2 your plate is filled with either protein or vegetables.
- 1/4 your plate is filled with either protein or vegetables (whichever you didn’t choose in the above step).
- 1/4 your plate is filled with whatever the hell you want.
3 snack each day
- Snacks fit in the palm of your hand
- Make at least one of these snacks fruit, the other two can be whatever you choose.
3 days of exercise per week
- Any form of exercise will do here. Strength training, walking, unicorn jousting, it doesn’t matter. Just move your body.
- If you’re really unsure where to start, take my free beginner’s workout program.
This program is designed to take ALL of the guesswork out for you.
Go into the gym, follow this program. Reach your goals.
How To Improve Consistency In Fitness
Tip 4: The 80/20 Rule
It’s okay to not be perfect 100% of the time.
In fact, I think it’s better to be 80% consistent than 100% consistent.
If you’re having to worry about being perfect all time, you’re not really living life to the fullest.
Life is about more than being all in on your fitness all the time.
It’s about the little moments. The birthday cake at your nephew’s 3rd birthday party. Having a couple drinks with your friends after work. Or just a glass of wine to yourself on a Sunday night.
Being 80% consistent allows you to plan for these events, and be able to enjoy them, and then stay on track.
This doesn’t mean go out and have a drink with your friends every single night after work.
It also doesn’t mean be completely on track all week, and when the weekend comes just throw all of your plans out.
That’s not being consistent, and that’s not balance.
What it does mean is that 80% of your food should come from nutritious sources.
20% of your food should come from delicious sources.
And that should be done 80% of the time.
Now remember, if you don’t manage to stick to this, don’t give up.
If you end up with a few days where you go off track, this is not the time to quit.
You can’t mess up your progress from a couple days of inconsistency.
It takes just as much time to undo your progress as it took to make it in the first place.
How To Improve Consistency In Fitness
Tip 5: Hire A Coach
A great way to improve your consistency is to have someone to help hold you accountable.
Having a coach that you have to regularly check in with to make sure you’re getting the results you want can be almost like a cheat code to improving consistency.
It’s important to realize that hiring a coach doesn’t mean all the work will get magically done for you.
You still have to put in the work.
But it helps a lot to have someone who cares about you and wants to see you succeed.
If you’re serious about taking your fitness to the next level, or maybe even the first level, go ahead and fill out my online coaching application, and I’ll take all of the guesswork out of it for you.
As always, if you have any questions, e-mail me, [email protected]. I’m always here to help.
Much love,
Nick