Fitness Tips For Adults

By John A. Mays, MSEd

Fitness Together

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Fitness Tips For Adults

As we enter the summer season, how can adults over 40 guarantee long-term success on their health and fitness goals? No need to make elaborate goals or fear failure. With the right mindset, you can make small changes that guarantee that you will make progress and improve your health and fitness this summer.

Here are a few tips to help turn that corner in your mindset toward health and fitness and actually meet your goals rather than feeling discouraged and giving up.

Be Realistic Start out with realistic goals that don't include weight loss. Weight loss comes from the reaching of other measurable fitness goals. Don't let unrealistic goals keep you from moving forward at all. And weight loss isn't the only monitor of health and fitness; there's also strength, endurance, flexibility, lowering stress, getting more sleep, etc.

Start Small Give yourself very small goals to start with. You may have an overall goal for the year, but you have to make small goals along the way or you'll lose sight and get frustrated. You can't go from never working out to working out five times a week and expect to maintain that you'll definitely get frustrated and burn out. Maybe start with exercising once or twice a week and then up it later.

Go Beyond Diets Diets are short-term fixes. They may help you lose some weight initially but they also might mess up your metabolism so that it is virtually impossible to keep it off. Learn to make long-term changes to your lifestyle, food choices, and eating habits that you will enjoy. That guarantees results that last and are enjoyable.

Ask for Help You don't have to know everything and there's no reason to go it alone. You can often get free first-time consultations to help you figure out how to get started. You don't need to make a long-term financial commitment if you don't want to. It might even be as simple as talking to a friend or family member who has made headway in the areas you struggle with or who you know lives a healthy lifestyle.

If you find you are not making progress and you can't figure out why, ask for help. Call Fitness Together Chantilly for a free consultation this summer.