So, its that time of year again…

As Christmas is only a couple of weeks away and the common overindulgence of food and drink gets underway (can’t beat the cheese and crackers over the festive period!) thoughts turn to wanting to get in shape come the new year.

Here are a couple of tips that I think could help you keep that motivation well into the new year and make 2017 a healthier one:

• Set realistic targets and goals – in my experience the people that struggle to keep going with their training are the ones who either set a unrealistic goal, usually centred around losing a certain amount of weight by a certain date or those that change too much to soon in their lives. For example for someone who doesn’t attend the gym currently and then decides they are going to train 5 days a week probably aren’t going to keep that up for a prolonged period of time. Instead I would suggest starting off attending the gym a couple of times a week and then building up to said number of sessions you wish to do.

• Nutrition is key – nutrition plays a massive role in what results you will get and how quickly you will get them. Keep a rough food diary, either by hand or by using the Myfitnesspal app and see what your current intake is. This will probably surprise you when you see it, whether you are over or under eating. Again through my experience suddenly going from potentially not a great diet to wanting to eat 100% clean 7 days a week is in most cases too big a step to make all in one go. Over the course of a couple of weeks introduce healthier options and replace the not so healthy ones and this should be more sustainable.

• Do some research into the form of training you would like to do to reach your goal – now this could be done by a simple internet search, speaking to people you know that are into their fitness or by speaking to a Personal Trainer. Here at Letchworth Fitness we offer a free, no pressured consultation to discuss your goals and to see if personal training could benefit you. As well as this we offer our Start Up Packages that offer a discounted way of working with a Personal Trainer to see first hand the benefit this could have on your training.