How to Sabotage Your Fitness Gains

You’ve gotten into a fitness groove. You’re eating well and hitting the gym. Then suddenly you sabotage your fitness gains unintentionally, without even really knowing it.

Take Jane for example. Jane has been steadily dropping inches of her waist, thighs, and arms.  She has been increasing her resistance and difficulty level at her local gym for the last several weeks and her eating habits have greatly improved.  She switched from a Starbucks Latte and Pastry to a high protein breakfast of eggs and fruit; she has systemically been making healthy clean dinners and has been bringing the leftovers for work lunches.  This is when the progress really begins– a continued commitment to changing your lifestyle.  However, sometimes life hits you in the stomach, and you backslide, sabotaging your results.

Jane began to lose sleep regularly because of stress which then lead to later wake-ups in the morning which lead to a drive through high carbohydrate (sugary) breakfast.  When you start your day on sugar, it will continue throughout the rest of the day.  Jane may still be hitting the gym regularly, but, during her workouts she feels sluggish and tired and all of a sudden can’t lift as much as she could the other day.

In a prior article, I’ve written about how you can change your shape in six weeks.  And, you really truly can.  If you adhere to a minimum of three strength training workouts a week along with a clean diet, you can easily drop a dress size literally overnight.  There are hundreds of tools out there that can enable a mom to change their life, simply by starting with a commitment.

However, I’d also like to discuss the flip side of this coin.  You can completely sabotage and UNDO everything you did by sleeping poorly, eating poorly,  eating too much sugar, not enough water or not enough food.

Over the years, I’ve learned that sleep is the MOST important aspect of a healthy diet and lifestyle.  Some experts, like Robb Wolf, feel that nine hours is the required amount for most people. Too little food is simply telling yourself that you won’t finish your workout or that it will go badly.  Too much food, too late at night at least for me, with workouts planned for early morning also result in a poor finish or multiple trips to the bathroom.  Bottom line is that if you treat your body with the utmost respect most of the time, you will feel great and the results will come.

Learn from me, if it’s been a late night out with friends, take the next day as a rest day.  Never force a workout on a day that you know you’re heart won’t be in it.  It will only result in frustration.