“The Kaizen Approach to New Year’s Health and Fitness” by John Lark
Gyms laugh in January. They open their doors to a stream of enthusiastic and motivated individuals decked in the latest spandex offerings and with the zeal of a child diving into a pack of sweets. They take your details, ask a few probing questions, assess you and then leave you to it. The motivation is good at the start. You take up a class, lift a few weights, enjoy the group walks around the block. A month on you look at the scales and nothing has moved.
Was it really worth it?
Was it worth leaving a screaming household to go and perform a workout that left me drained in a pool of sweat? Short answer – no. So you throw in the towel. It is ok. No one will notice.
The race to become a fitter, healthier and significantly newer you has finished. Well, until next year, or next week, or ‘when I get the call from next door to go for a walk’. Time to wake up and smell the coffee.
Your interior monologue and the little voices that keep you in front of mindless soaps such as Coronation Street are not going to win this one. Time to take a realistic approach to the New Year. One that will include gradual and ongoing improvement. This is beautifully summed up with the Eastern Philosophy of ‘Kaizen’.
Each day – no matter how small – you are going to take steps to improving your health and fitness. Think baby steps rather than futile long strides.
Kaizen in health and fitness allows us to take each day as it comes. Set goals which are attainable and progressive and incorporate health and fitness into our lives with progression, accountability and constant revision.
Here are my five top ways of incorporating this philosophy into your plans for the new you in the new year.
1. Set Behaviour Orientated Goals
It may be your ambition to start having a breakfast each morning to help you with your energy, fat metabolism and sugar cravings each day.
From the outset this seems a constant and never-ending battle. In time you may give up because you haven’t realised that the goal of eating breakfast each morning is actually preceded by the behaviour of getting up earlier.
Going to the gym three times a week may be hard if you don’t bring your kit bag with you to work and nip there on the way home rather than heading home first.
The behaviour that allows you to go to the gym three times a week is actually ‘taking a gym bag to work’
Your First Step:
Identify which five behaviours you need to add and work on for 21 days.
2. Start Interval Training
Recent research shows that shorter, yet more intense bouts of exercise are more effective at burning fat than the long drawn out sessions.
This is great for our baby steps. Now 45 minutes doesn’t seem so daunting to achieve 5 times per week.
Your First Step:
Try one session of twenty minutes whereby you pick the pace up of your walk for a minute and then ease back down for two minutes. Repeat this eight to ten times.
3. Begin to Strength Train
A progressive and gradual increase in strength will mean more muscle, a faster metabolism, more anti-aging hormones circulating in your system and more energy.
Your First Step:
Pick up a book from your local bookstore, use a video or hire a professional to show you how.
4. Start a simple and effortless stretching routine
Stretching is crucial to our health and vitality and needn’t be exhaustive in the time it takes you to perform.
Your First Step
Try this simple stretch – Kneel with one knee on the ground. Hold onto a chair for support. Push gently through the knee on the floor. You should feel a mild tug on the front of your thigh. Relax. Repeat 2-3 times per side each time holding for 15 seconds.
5. Kick Start Your Diet with Foods Rich in Protein and Fibre
Eating a die rich in lean protein sources such as eggs, chicken, turkey, lean red meat and fish coupled with plenty of fibre in green vegetables is a sure fire way to get the fat furnaces going this new year.
Your first step
Plan your shopping and try and knock out some of the high fat processed foods and substitute them for more meats and fish alongside more fruits and vegetables. Your body and your wallet will thank you for it.
John Lark M.A., CSCS is a fat loss specialist based at The Sphere Fitness Studio, Leinster Clinic, Maynoooth. Download your free fat loss report at www.spherefitness.ie
Contact – John Lark
E: jlark@spherefitness.ie
