You finally made it through winter and spring will be starting soon. Spring is an awesome time of the year for renewal, rebirth and resetting your goals. The days are also getting longer which is a huge plus for getting everything done!
In this article I want to make sure that you’re mentally, physically and emotionally prepared for the spring season by having you spring clean your life which will help ensure that you will continue to jump (not spring) forward with an increased feeling of happiness and excitement for the months to come!
When you usually hear about spring cleaning you might think of cleaning your home, office or garage while getting rid of all the junk, paper and useless things that are cluttering up your space and your life. But when it comes to your wellness, exercise, health and nutrition, spring cleaning takes on an entirely new, and hopefully, more exciting meaning.
Spring cleaning your fitness, nutrition, exercise, health and wellness program begins when you can take the time to sit down and really analyze your current diet, workout routines and overall goals. Then, you can decide if what you’re currently doing is taking you in the right direction to reach your goals. For example, if your goal is to lose 20 pounds, then you need to ask yourself if you’re doing everything necessary in order to meet those goals. If after reviewing everything you can honestly say “no”, then you definitely need to spring clean your fitness program with the following tips and guidelines!
Spring Cleaning Your Goals
Since we are just a few months into the new year, where are you with your January goals? January and the winter months have come and gone, spring is here and it’s time for you to ask yourself how close you really are to achieving the goals that you set forth in January. Take a look at your prior goals, and if they no longer serve you or what you want to accomplish in life, then it’s time to revise your goals.
Don’t worry, no one would (nor should) fault you for your changes, especially you! Every day we change and grow and that means that our goals and dreams can, will, and sometimes must change with us!
Spring Cleaning Your Workouts (Fitness and Exercise)
Are you no longer getting the results you want from your workouts? If not, then it’s time to spring clean your strength training and cardio program now! Remember, from a physiological standpoint, your body can quickly adapt to your workout routine within 4-6 weeks (depending on what you’re doing), so change is always needed every few months to shock your body.
If you’re plateauing with your results, make sure that you’re documenting your workouts to include all of your exercises, weights being used, repetitions and sets. This can easily be recorded and tracked by either writing it all down in a fitness journal or by using a fitness tracking app on your mobile phone like ShapeFit’s FitTracker app.
You should also document your cardio routines and include the duration, distance, calories (if known), and what type of cardio exercise you’re doing like running, jogging, cycling, stationary cycling, treadmill, spinning and Zumba. Why documentation? If you don’t document what you’re doing, how will you know what is or is not working for you? Remember, what gets measured gets managed!
If you decide that having a certified personal trainer is what you need to take your fitness results to the next level, your trainer will ask you what you’re currently doing. If you answer with “I’m doing this, and this and this”, it probably isn’t the most useful thing you can say to help your trainer out. I personally like if someone tells me, “I’m doing dumbbell squats with 25 pounds for 3 sets of 10 reps” rather than saying, “I’m doing dumbbell squats but I don’t know the weight or how many reps and sets I’m doing”. This can provide your trainer and yourself with important information about where you were in the past, where you are now and where you should be going next to succeed with your fitness program.
Spring Cleaning Your Diet and Nutrition Program
How is your nutrition program going? Are you eating 4-6 small nutrient dense meals a day which includes 3 meals plus 2 snacks? Have you increased your vegetable and fruit intake? Are you drinking 10-12 cups of pure water daily (not including tea, coffee or soda)? Have you decreased or entirely eliminated fast foods from your diet? If you can answer “yes” to these questions, great job! You’re on the right track! Your diet as well as your daily caloric intake accounts for around 80% of your overall results, so it’s critical that you get this area on track. Your diet can also decrease your risk of stroke, heart attack, type-2 diabetes, atherosclerosis and obesity. Remember, by decreasing just 10% of your current body weight, it can add years to your life!
Spring Cleaning Your Wellness Program
Your wellness program includes meditation, yoga, pilates, or any other type of mind-body wellness activity.
Meditation – The benefits include physiological, spiritual and psychological wellness, including increasing blood flow and slowing down your heart rate, decreasing muscle tension, improving your creativity, helping with focus and concentration, helping with living in the “now mode”, and experiencing a deep sense of inner peace. Who doesn’t want to benefit in all of these areas?
Yoga – It’s true that yoga can greatly improve your flexibility, but did you know that yoga can also help with the lubrication and fluidity in your joints, ligaments and tendons as well as being a great routine for improving muscular strength? And don’t worry because body resistance training using yoga will not add any bulk to your body as you are using your own body weight which gives you a tight, sexy body with great flexibility! Yoga has grown in popularity in the past 20 plus years with a wide variety of different yoga modalities so finding the right type of yoga is waiting for you to get started and reap the benefits!
Pilates – This can improve your overall health and fitness while targeting your core. Remember, pilates is the fitness system that basically coined the word “core”! Pilates can improve your flexibility, body control, strength and helps to control your breathing, core conditioning, concentration and overall focus!
Putting It All Together!
Everyone’s workout can use a spring, winter, summer or fall tune-up. Whatever your health, fitness, nutrition or wellness goals are, you should update your overall routines every 4-6 weeks. Not sure how to do it? Well, then it probably a smart choice to contact a certified personal trainer, yoga, pilates or group exercise instructor who specializes in one or several of these modalities. This will help you get back on track with your fitness and nutrition program so you can get the results that you’re working so hard to attain!
