You are working out hard every day, but you just don’t seem to notice any change. Even after a few months, something should start looking or feeling better, not to mention how after a year or two you should’ve reached your goal. At least some of it. However, that’s simply not happening and now you’re thinking about giving up on exercising.
No, don’t give up! Did you ever stop and think that you might be doing something wrong? If not, you should sit down and examine your workout routine, your daily habits, movements, diet and so on. Somewhere in there, something is off and that’s why your hard work isn’t paying off. So, let’s see what little and big things you might be doing a bit off and what can affect your progress in a negative way.
You haven’t changed your diet
Exercising is awesome and it’s what your body needs in order to stay healthy and fit. However, are you doing something about your diet? If you think that you can burn yourself to the maximum at the gym and go home and eat a pile of pasta for dinner, or not eat all, how do you think your body is going to feel? Don’t mind that ‘you are what you eat’, because that is not entirely true, but your body is going to need proper nutritional support in order for those hard exercises to pay off.
Proper nutrition fuels your workouts, but if you let yourself go and eat too much you will only gain weight or not make any progress, and if you eat too little, you won’t have enough energy to keep up with working out. If you’re having troubles regulating your diet, you should log your foods and see how many calories a day you intake and how many of them you actually burn. This way, you will motivate yourself to eat properly and strike a perfect balance between your calorie intake and burn.
You’re not getting enough sleep
It is a well-known fact that our bodies need sleep in order to function properly. So, it’s obvious that you need to sleep properly and enough in order for your training to be fruitful. Everyone needs a different amount of sleep, but the recommended average is between 7 and 9 hours of sleep. Plus, sleep will help with balancing your hormones and repairing cells and if you lack sleep your hunger hormone production (ghrelin) will increase.
What is more, lack of sleep leads to increased stress which is frequently the cause of fat gain. Another thing that proper sleep is responsible for is repairment of your muscles after hard training sessions, and if your muscles don’t get enough time to repair, they will be stressed, you will be tired and all that hard work will be in vain.
Is your gear comfortable?
Another important factor to proper workout that is going to pay off is comfortable gear – otherwise, you might feel like giving up. If your shirt is tight enough or it’s not absorbing your sweat properly, you are bound to feel uncomfortable. The same goes for your shorts or yoga pants or whatever you like wearing. Figure out your exact size and find the material that absorbs sweat properly and those troubles will disappear.
Also, if your running or gym shoes are too tight or too big, you will develop painful blisters which will only throw you off from regular exercising and reduce your motivation. You should get informed on proper footwear, and you can find plenty of useful info at GearWeAre and make sure that everything fits well and that you feel comfy. After that’s taken care of, you are bound to work out with a smile on your face and reach your goals.
Are you rewarding yourself with food?
Don’t let yourself come up with excuses to eat greasy foods and a pile of dessert just because you “went to the gym” that day. If you are doing that, you are only undoing your hard work on burning calories with too many treats. The best remedy is to familiarize yourself with the calorie content of your favorite foods and balance that with the number of calories you are burning. Or simply be strong and don’t fall for your brain’s tricks to slow down your workout progress and goals.
You’re doing too much cardio
Cardio is an important part of exercising in order to burn more calories and reach your goal, but you can’t rely on it too much. It is essential to have an exercise plan that does include cardio, but don’t include it too much. You also have to have some strength and flexibility exercises in order for your body to make progress. By only doing cardio or too much of it, you are burning calories, but you aren’t allowing your body to change its composition and build muscle. That’s why you have to have strength training. Also, in order to become stronger, your muscles need flexibility, and that’s why it’s important to have some appropriate exercises. So, make sure to make the perfect combination of the three and you will start seeing progress.
Do you sit too much?
Sure, you exercise regularly, but what about the rest of your day? If you work out hard at least three times a week, but you spend the rest of the time at your desk or sitting at the office, or even lying down watching TV, you’re simply undoing everything from the working out.
Sitting too much is simply bad for our overall health and our weight, even though you are exercising during the day. That is why you need to try and include more activity throughout the whole day. Start by introducing walks after dinner, or stand up whenever you can, take the stairs, park the car further from your office and replace watching TV with walking or playing with your dog. You have to limit your ‘idle’ time and get moving in order for your body to get accustomed and you will start seeing much more progress and changes in your body, posture, and weight.
Exercising is great, but sometimes there is no progress. That can happen for numbers of reasons and you have to find what’s troubling you. Examine your days, your habits and your diet, and as soon as you work on those, your working out will pay off and it may even double in effects.
