Do you soar with eagles or peck with the chickens?
This could be one of the biggest questions that you present yourself with when it comes to shifting the stubborn pounds of fat.
Success author Jim Rohn states you are the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with. So cast aside your immediate family and look around you.
Are your friends helping or hindering you in your attempts to shift the fat?
Do they
a) Say that you are looking ‘ill’ or ‘gaunt’ on a regular basis?
b) Question ‘why you would want to hit the gym when a cup of tea and a natter would be a better idea’
c) Call you up and insist on pints, every night
d) Say that ‘you are losing too much weight’
e) Slam biscuits and cakes in your face and insist that ‘ahh, one won’t kill you’ besides ‘ it is good to loosen up a bit from time to time’
I love these saboteurs. They are everywhere.
Finding your support group is crucial to your success in burning fat.
When people come to our facility (gym in Maynooth) they have one thing in mind – shift fat fast. Fortunately there are other people in the same boat as them, moving through the process and acting as a touch of inspiration.
The worst thing you can do is to do it alone. But choose your friends carefully.
I am not saying ditch your mates! But communicate with them. It is important to YOU that you meet whatever goal you have set. Not them.
Building a good support team will help you through the sticky times. Classic moments include opting for the duvet over a training session, the dessert over more veggies, forgetting your gym back on the way home from work and not scheduling that walk with your friends into your day.
Coaches, mentors, trainers, teammates, partners, fans. Even the greatest athletes in the world can’t do it alone.
People naturally perform better when others are on their side and helping out. Even in everyday nutrition and fitness, we’ve found that people who involve others and ask for help get much better results and stick to their programs longer than people who try to go the distance on their own.
Why is that? For starters, positive peer pressure can be one of the most powerful motivators around. It’s tougher to quit when someone else is counting on you. In fact, with a team that’s pulling for you, it’s less likely that you’ll want to quit.
When you involve others, you have access to more knowledge, more ideas, more enthusiasm, and more resources. Bicyclists and race car drivers are finding out that they need team mates looking out for them if they have any chance at all of winning. You can take advantage of the same benefits.
Having other people help out just makes weight loss alot more fun. Especially for social exercisers, trying to lose weight and exercise alone can leave you bored out of your mind.
Business people draw on a team of accountants, lawyers, financial advisers, headhunters, board members, etc. Together, they form a team of specialists that open up possibilities to that businessperson and his/her business goals. You can build a similar team around your weight loss goals. People that can help with your journey are all around you. You can do this without making a lot of demands on anyone’s time. Some possible ways to build a strong team by only asking one thing of each person:
* Ask a friend to check with you once a week to see how you’re doing.
* Ask your significant other to be there when you need to unload.
* Ask a close co-worker to keep you motivated.
* Ask your kids to help you find active ways to have fun.
* Ask your partner to pass along inspirational reading and interesting health news.
* Ask your photographer sister to take “before” and “in-progress” pictures.
Better yet, why not ask someone to join your healthy lifestyle quest? Going through and succeeding with a new program with a friend can create a bond that carries over into other areas of your life.
Fishermen know that they won’t need to place a lid of some freshly caught crabs. Why? Because each time one attempts to escape the others use that crab as leverage for themselves. The end result is no-one escapes.
John Lark is a personal trainer in Maynooth
Go to his website today and download a copy of the Transformation to Health Pack where he unlocks the secrets to incredible body transformations http://spherefitness.ie
