Don't Wait Until Monday. Start Tracking Your Fitness and Nutrition Now
Build momentum instead of waiting for perfection
If you’ve been reading these articles since August last year, you will be on your way to having the tools, knowledge and confidence to design your own body recomposition strategy.
It’s easy to delay getting started by focusing on collecting more information instead of getting out there and implementing it. This is a mistake — you’re better off starting with a basic strategy that improves over time instead of trying to perfect your strategy before you get started (perfect will never happen).
I can tell you that there will rarely be a better time to get started than now. As the old saying goes: the best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago, and the next best time is now.
The longer you put it off, the older you get, the less fit you become, and the more weight you are likely to gain — which will only make improving your training and nutrition harder.
If you’re setting a start date in the future, ask yourself if it is really because it is a better time to start or if you are avoiding getting started now. I’m sure that comes across as lacking empathy, but it’s quite the opposite.
I have seen many people interested in getting started only to continue pushing back the start dates they set in the future. They become more disheartened about their body composition and regret not starting beforehand. Eventually, they look back and get frustrated for not taking the opportunity or regret how far they could have come if they had begun.
The reality is that any previous ship has sailed. Instead of being sad that you missed it, you must focus on getting started now. Work will only get busier, and the family will always be demanding — it’s easy to fantasise about starting when these settle down, but they never do. You need to integrate fitness and nutrition into your busy lifestyle because that is the lifestyle you lead.
There is no point in going to an island paradise for three months to lose weight because there is every chance you will put the weight back on when you return to your routine. That is no slight on your training and nutrition, but any habits built on holiday often unravel when you return to normality.
The same goes for surgical weight-loss interventions that lead to short-term changes in body composition. Often the weight begins to creep back on, partly because the initial weight loss didn’t require the lifestyle modifications needed to manage long-term health.
Of course, everyone sets out with the best intentions to stick to a healthy diet when they get the intervention, but failing to address the habits that got them there can lead to the weight returning.
So what is the first step — what can you do today that will get you going in the right direction?
Tracking!
Tracking is procrastination-free — you can start by recording what you’ve done today — there’s no need to change what you’re doing. Tracking is more insightful if you keep doing what you are doing now, particularly if that accurately reflects the last six weeks.
If you ever find yourself doing well and then hit a roadblock, the best way to get moving again is to return to basics. If you’ve had a bad month ‘off the plan’, start tracking again to see where you are at.
Where are you deviating from the plan?
Why are you doing that?
What insights can be gained from your answers?
You don’t need to use this information to get yourself back to the pre-roadblock nutrition plan — maybe take a few steps back and get something adhereable in place. Once you return to a routine, you will likely rapidly up the ante and return to where you were.
Even without such a burst, getting started with the tracking and making adjustments from there is much better than trying to adhere to something you cannot do right now, which leads to disillusionment.
The essence of what I am saying is that there will never be a perfect time to start. Even if now seems like a horrible time to begin, there is every chance you will look back at this point in time in a couple of years after your work gets even busier and think it was the perfect time to begin.
Don’t wait any longer — start tracking today. Understanding your 3 F’s through tracking is essential to developing a body recomposition strategy, so get started as soon as possible!