Three reasons we fail to reach our health and fitness goals (part 2)

Episode Notes

On episode 643 of the 40 Plus Fitness podcast, we discussed the second of the three primary reasons why we fail at reaching our health and fitness goals and what to do about it.

Hello, and welcome to episode 643. Today, we're gonna continue the conversation we were having about the three reasons we fail at reaching our health and fitness goals and, of course, what you can do about it. Again, I'm traveling, so I don't have a ton of time, but I can get you the second reason today. First reason was last week. 3rd reason will be next week. So one of the core reasons we fail at reaching our health and fitness goals is we let life get

in the way, And I'm sure you've experienced this. I often call I call them detours. Okay? So because they're fairly common, but I call them detours, because we have a path. We have somewhere we're going, particularly if, like last week, we did what we were supposed to do. We we have a direction. We have something we're up to. But then every once in a while, we take those this off ramp, and we're no longer in pursuit of our health or fitness goals. We're we're off track. We're not off the road.

Okay? And there's times when that's important, and there's times when it's not. It's times when it's planned, like, we know we're gonna take a detour, detour, like I'm on this cruise right now. Or it can be an unplanned one where something happens, and you're stuck. Okay?

So I am going to talk about planned detours first. And so as this episode's going live, okay, I should probably be in Venice right now, okay, with my wife, Tammy. We were on a 12 day cruise before this, and now we went to then we went to Florence, and now we're we should be, as this goes live in Italy. And so as you imagine, traveling for nearly a month, I am not on track entirely. My normal life is not there. So this is a pretty epic detour to be gone traveling for an entire month. But the good thing about a planned detour is that you can prepare yourself ahead of time to make the most of it. Now there are times, I'll tell you, when you take a planned detour, just just go.

Just go enjoy yourself, and be 100% off. Okay? But there are other times, like, you know, taking a whole month off. That's that's pretty extreme. So, you know, I I wanna try to stay on track. So my plan going into my detour was that I I wanna do a few things to stay on track. I'm still going to enjoy myself, but I'm not completely off. But there will be times that you want to be completely off, and that's cool. That's an important part of life, too.

So here's some things that I've done to prepare myself for this trip. I looked at the gym that was available to me on the cruise ship. I looked at gyms that were available to me in Florence and, Venice. Okay. The one on the cruise ship is pretty awesome. So, again, I'll be getting some lifting done. I promise you that.

Now, obviously, we're gonna be going on we're going on excursions. We're doing various things, as we, as a tourist, often do. So I'm probably going to get plenty of steps. But on the cruise ship, they also have a track. So either way, I should have no trouble getting in as many steps as I want to set as a goal for myself during this period of time. Again, a little different than what I would normally do. It's not my normal beach walk. But it is it is the opportunity to get my steps in.

Maybe even get more steps in than I would have otherwise. Okay?

So I can do the research to know what's there. And so I'm going to have what I need to get this done. I just need to really push myself to stay on it. Now since I have what I need to pretty much keep my lifting program going and to maybe even walk more, I have a pretty I had I had a pretty solid plan coming into this this period of time, this detour. Now the second part of a detour is you have to plan your way back onto the road, onto the highway, the on ramp, if you will. And so when I get back, I wanna have some things in place that are gonna help me be more successful.

Okay? So I'll probably still be lifting. It'll be different equipment than I'm used to. I'll still be doing a lot of steps, but it won't be my normal walk. So when I get back, I just need to make sure that I've scheduled the time to do what I need to do, And I'm actually considering hiring a coach that will basically one of us will write my program. I'll either hire a coach to write my program and coach me, or I'll write my program, and I'll hire a coach to hold me accountable. But either way, I want a coach to hold me accountable and push me a little bit harder.

Accountability is a really important aspect for success, and you really should have a coach helping you.

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So in summary, when you have a planned detour, this time that you're going to be away is not going to be normal. You need that plan for what you're going to do for that detour so that you stay generally on track. You can plan to be completely off, or you can plan to be partially off, or you can plan to be fully on. You can make that decision based on your life circumstances. And then you also need a plan for when you return. Okay? So if you will go out there and make sure that you have in place the things you need, then you can make it happen. So certain strategies and tactics, like having time blocked out on my calendar in between the excursions so that I can get my workouts done, having time on my calendar and reaching out to a coach before I get back. I'll have 1 hired ready to go when I get back.

So all of these different things require a bit of planning on the front and the end of both of them. And, again, that's we we go back and you think about what we talked about. And number 1, that makes complete sense. When you have a good plan, you do the things that need to be done. So you set yourself up for success when you have a planned detour. Now, unplanned detours can be

a bit harder, but they're basically a very similar thing. A lot of times, though, people will have an unplanned detour. Something happens in their life. It could be a family issue, an injury, an illness. Just something happens, and they're like, oh, life got in the way, and they quit right there. Okay. And you don't want to do that. You want to make sure that you look at this as an opportunity to learn, and an opportunity to push yourself just a little bit harder to be a little bit more diligent, to be a little bit better self managed. Okay? So the unplanned detour is similar to the planned detour. It's just usually you'll have less time ahead of time to know it's happening, and you'll have probably less freedom of choice. Okay? Because things are what they are. So if you come into an unplanned detour, you might find, okay. I've got to go to a family member's house for this or that. I wasn't planning on doing that. So now I've got to start and quickly try to do the research.

Okay. I don't have access to my gym. What gym will I have access to? K. I won't have access to the food I usually eat. What food will I have access to? So if you're staying in a city that you don't have access to a kitchen, obviously, you can't do grocery shopping and cooking for yourself. You're gonna be somewhat maybe reliant on other people or restaurants or whatnot for those things. So looking around, what are some of the menu items that are available in the various restaurants? Is there food delivery apps and people that basically I can go through and make sure that I'm getting what I need? Maybe this is a time when I am able to cook, but, you know, doing the grocery shopping, getting all prepared, I don't have as much time. So I contact one of those delivery services that delivers the fresh food already cut, already measured, already ready.

You just warm it up or you cook put it together, cook it per per their instructions, and you have a a full well done healthy meal. So there are gonna be some choices. You just have to make those decisions a little bit quicker, and you may have to spend a little bit more money than you would normally spend. But it just means that you have to make adaptations to yourself to make sure you're still on track as much as possible.

And like a planned detour, you have to plan your way back onto the on ramp once the situation passes. Now, again, this is also a little harder because you don't necessarily know everything as far as when things are gonna get back to normal or if they will get back to normal. But the process is pretty much the same. You basically have your plan. You know what you want to do, and then you basically make sure you execute on that plan. Now there is one additional thing, that you need to do, whether you're on a planned or unplanned detour. And this is this is maybe the hardest part of all of this, is that you you do have to reset your expectations. So if you went into your your journey here, and you wanted to lose £20 in, say, 2 months, and now you've had to go spend 4 weeks at a family member's house taking care of a loved one, well, the things you were going to do aren't necessarily going to get done. So you might have to give yourself a little bit of wiggle room, a little bit of grace, a little bit of kindness, and just say, my pace is going to be a little bit slower, or it will be a good bit slower, but I'm still going to be moving forward. I'm still going to do something. I'm still going to make progress. And so maybe you had thought, I'm going to do that resistance training twice a week, and I'm gonna walk for half an hour 4 times a week. And now you're sitting there saying, well, you know, since I've got to do these things, I I can't necessarily get all of 6 of those workouts in. I might have to say, okay.

One good resistance training and 2 longer walks, 1 hour walks. And if that's all I can do, that's all I can do. I'm still gonna watch what I'm eating. I'm still gonna do those other things. But if I wanna do this, I I'm just gonna be moving slower. So I probably won't get there in the 2 months. Maybe it's gonna take me 3, maybe longer. But I understand that that's where I am, so I can still feel good that I'm making some progress.

Because some progress is better than none. And remember, this is where most people quit. And so if you're gonna let life get in the way, that's how you're gonna live the rest of your life. Because life is always in the way. And for you to reach your health and fitness goals, sometimes you just have to buck up and push through. There are better ways, because you can plan through these processes of knowing there's a detour, and knowing what it means, and being realistic, but still doing the work that you can with what you have, where you are. That's the best approach. So that's the second core reason why people fail at our health and fitness goals is that we we let life get in the way, and I think I've given you some tools today for you to not do that going forward.

So a week from today, we'll be talking about, the third reason why we fail at reaching our health and fitness goals. If you enjoyed today's show, take a moment to subscribe so you don't miss the next one. And if you would, please leave us a rating and a review on your podcast player of choice.

Music by Dave Gerhart

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