Overcoming Fitness Obstacles: Advanced Challenges

As you advance along in meeting your fitness goals, many things can and often do happen to trip you up. These range from money-related problems to time-related issues and much more. Let’s take a look at popular fitness challenges and see how to successfully tackle them.

Time
Not enough time to hit the weights or the gym is one of the top fitness stoppers. This can generally be overcome with better planning, organization, and prioritizing. So pick up a planner at your local office supply store or start using yours more and more effectively.

Organize your days, weeks, and months and set up priorities each day. For example, get up an hour earlier each day and work out at that time. Skip an hour of TV each night to listen to motivational audio files while you’re preparing the next day’s healthy menus and foods. And schedule in a pit stop at the market for fresh fruits and vegetables with your other weekly errands like going to the bank and post office.

Money
Other top challenges that arise include lack of money. This can affect your fitness club or gym membership, getting new clothes in smaller sizes as you drop weight, getting healthy foods and beverages to go with your fitness program, etc. To help combat this you can borrow books, videos, cassettes, and other aids from your local library. Also check online for free resources on not only fitness but on topics like money management, how to make extra money in your spare time, recipes for healthy meals and snacks, sewing your own clothes, cutting your own hair, and keeping positive during difficult times.

Also don’t be afraid to discuss your financial problem with your gym or fitness center owner. You may be able to take a time-out and continue your membership later when things pick up, or you may be able to continue on a different plan with a lower rate, or you may be able to cancel and have any penalty waived with a letter.

Boredom

Dull or overused routines can result in tedium. So can lack of progress. So pump it up, as they used to say on Saturday Night Live.

Some ideas:

• Ask a trainer at your gym to help design a new program for you.
• Hire a trainer for a day.
• Grab a book or video and add their routine to yours.
• Increase your reps.
• Increase weights.
• Enroll in a new class.

Self-Focus

Step outside your self and look around. Sure, it’s wonderful to get fit. But are others there struggling? Do you see newcomers having difficulty figuring out the equipment, for example? Give back. Help others by helping yourself. Be a friend, make a friend…work together.

Backwards Progress

Get help! You may be eating the wrong foods, drinking the wrong beverages, not working out right or any number of things. Seek help on fitness forums, with a trainer at your gym, or check out Tom Venuto's Burn the Fat, the best fitness program we've seen… anywhere and everywhere until you get help.

So don’t give up the fitness ship!