This post is about the biggest fitness mistakes to avoid.
Alright, first off – congratulations, because you’ve done the hard part! You started your new fitness journey by putting in the hard work to see better results. And I’ve been there, friend! Starting is absolutely the hardest part. So, the last thing you want is to end up sabotaging all of your efforts by making one of these common fitness mistakes.
By the end of this post, you’ll know eleven of the most common fitness mistakes that prevent weight loss or affect your strength training.
Whether you have fitness goals of weight loss, fat loss, or muscle growth – knowing the best way to approach each step in the process is a good idea to avoid the risk of injury in your exercise routine or exercise program.
This post is all about the biggest fitness mistakes to avoid in order to see success!
Biggest Fitness Mistakes:
1. Overcomplicating Food and Exercise
One of the most common fitness mistakes that prevent weight loss, especially as a beginner fitness mistake, is attempting to make extremely advanced food and exercise decisions.
When you begin any kind of change to your nutrition or workout routine, your whole body will be affected. This means you don’t have to make drastic adjustments to start seeing results.
Many inaccurate blogs or “fad diets” will tell you to cut to carbs, try Cross Fit or stand on your head while doing both of those.
You’re setting yourself up for failure if you’re trying to build consistency in a system that’s too difficult to implement into your daily life.
Take it slow.
Take out the advanced meal plans where you have to sacrifice a macronutrient food group and forgo the complicated workouts. Just stick to a caloric deficit and do a 30-minute workout.
When you stick to the basics and build consistency, your body WILL thank you.
BASICS + CONISTENCY + EFFORT = R E S U L T S
2. Exercise is Boring
I cover this fitness myth in How to Start Your Fitness Journey: Part 2 and you can tell my blogging skills have come a long way since that post, LOL. So no judging!
You have to find something that you enjoy doing!
Just because Susie Q loves to run, does not mean that running is going to be your forté. It most certainly is not mine. But the same goes for strength training.
Heck, I was terrified the first time I even thought about doing an intense workout like high-intensity interval training. But, you NEVER know what you’re going to end up falling in absolute love with!! And I tell you, it was one of the best things to ever happen to me.
Mix up your routine by rotating through different options and activities. Because I promise you, the same workout will get repetitive and boring!! I give you an entire bullet list of ideas in part two of How to Start Your Fitness Journey.
Try creating upbeat playlists, like EDM, or listen to motivating and inspiring podcasts!
3. Lack of Motivation
I can tell you right now… motivation will never be around every single day that you wake up.
Trust me, I know that’s not what you want to hear. Some days you’re going to open those eyes with a fire lit under your butt. And others, you or someone else, are going to be dragging that butt out of your bed.
This is why YOU have to create ways of your own motivation DAILY.
What are some ways I do this?
- Create a vision board
- Write compelling affirmations on your mirror
- Write your “why” some place you will see it every day – see How to Start Your Fitness Journey: Part 1 to figure out your why!
- Put your “goal body” picture on the fridge – no this is not of someone else. Make this a picture of you if you’ve gained weight. Or the body type you would like to be at the end of your goal.
Recommended Post: My Best Powerful Secret Surrounding Self Motivation
4. Failing to Keep Promises to Yourself
Failing to keep promises to yourself might be the worst fitness mistake. Why?
Ask yourself this question: “How do I feel when people cancel on me?”
I can bet your answer was “disappointed” or “let down”.
If you keep promises to yourself, it can be a powerful way to build trust within yourself. By simply keeping promises to yourself, you are becoming the person you want and are meant to be.
So what are some ways you can keep promises to yourself in order to avoid these fitness mistakes?
- Go to bed on time
- Schedule your workouts or number of workouts for the week
- Drink your daily water intake
- Count your macros or keep your food intake accounted for
Basically, COMMIT TO YOURSELF.
Breaking a promise to yourself tells your brain that you’re not important!! But when you keep promises to yourself, you will gain an enormous amount of happiness and self-confidence!
5. Lack of Accountability
One of the biggest fitness mistakes that unfortunately leads people to failure. When you walk the same path as someone else, it’s easier to turn to them in moments of weakness.
Having a source of accountability helps you to avoid slip-ups and gives you people to talk to when no one else understands.
Find yourself a friend or a daily texting accountability partner to not only get past the initial roadblocks but to continually help push each other towards greatness.
Recent studies show that it now takes six to eight weeks to instill practices to learn the self motivation for your future.
6. Lack of Preparation and Systems
Ever heard the phrase, “failing to prepare is preparing to fail“?
It’s soooo beyond accurate! Learn from my hard lessons learned. To build new daily habits, you must wake up with purpose and intention.
Your mind must be focused on what you’re chasing and how you’re going to get there.
Here are six daily habits to build a new system of preparation:
- Set out your workout clothes the night before
- Schedule your meal prep once or TWICE a week
- Put your meal prepped foods at eye level
- Have on-the-go snacks
- Take your gym bag with you to work
- Create a habit chain that turns into your new morning routine:
- Make your bed
- Drink some water
- Do your workouts
- Read 10 pages of a book
- Eat
- Shower
- Go to work
By continuing to do these 6 habits day after day, you will not only have a new routine, you’ll have set yourself up for MAJOR success.
7. Low Intensity Effort
If you feel like you’re just working out to “show up”.. you’ve already failed. I know that sounds harsh, but we’re here because we want to be better, right?
So if you’re only going to the gym just to punch your time clock, you’re not going to earn the motivation necessary to maintain the habit.
The motivation is earned from seeing the small daily progress add up.
Show up and GIVE IT YOUR ALL for that fifteen, twenty, thirty or even forty-five minutes that you’re there. Get rid of any and all distractions and focus.
It’s: You vs You.
How do we maximize our effort for the time we’re allotted?
- HIIT – High Intensity Interval Training
- Decrease your rest between sets
- Increase your weight during strength training
- Focus on 100% effort during each set, repetition or round
- Increase your cardio time
8. “Not Enough Time”
All of us are given the same 24 hours each day. No matter how much we have going on in our lives, we are all busy!
The only differentiating factor between those who succeed and those who don’t; is the dedication to how we spend our free time.
Time blocking my schedule has been the most effective way in making use of every extra minute I have. Literally.
If you’re not sure what time blocking is, it’s the method of writing out the plans for your day into time slots on a schedule. This gives your brain a visible understanding of the time you’re using vs time you have allotted for other activities.
By listing out every task I have to do and how long it’ll take me, I can visibly see the gaps left. I then fill these gaps with the activities I’m looking to achieve.
Use the Tiankool time-blocking planner to adjust your days into a time-blocking template. I promise you, you’ll truly see just how much time you have!
9. Goals and Actions Don’t Align
You and I can set goals all day, every day. But if what we chose to do, from the time we open our eyes until the time we fall asleep, doesn’t align with those goals, we’re setting ourselves up for failure.
When you are creating your big goals, make sure they’re SMART goals. ( see graphic – and Pin it! – below )
SMART Goals are as follows:
- S – Specific: make sure your goals are well defined and concise
- M – Measurable: in some fashion, find a way to keep track of and manage your progress
- A – Achievable: we all have big hairy scary goals.. pick one that you KNOW is 100% able to be achieved.
- R – Realistic: sort of goes hand-in-hand with achievable. don’t go chasing outer space. Unless you want to be an astronaut of course 😉
- T – Timely: create a start date and an end date to keep you focused on hitting the mark!
Now that you have your SMART goals, you must commit to starting your day with those goals in mind.
Surround yourself with daily affirmations written on your mirror, a physical checklist of things you must do, or even a motivating quote that you see every time you walk out of your door.
10. Failing to Track Your Progress
I know it can be intimidating to try so many new things at once. And one of the things ALOT of people despise is taking progress pictures or tracking what they eat.
When you’re not feeling your best, looking in the mirror can feel defeating. Taking pictures from the front, side, and back? I get it. It sucks. I’ve done it so many times. BUT I can tell you…
IT’S THE BEST THING I’VE EVER DONE.
Do it. I promise you will be so thankful you did!
On the second note, it can seem daunting to input everything you eat into a food tracker. But MyFitnessPal or Yazio make it so easy! With a quick barcode scan or food item search, you can easily add up your daily totals.
As you’re beginning to track your food, don’t focus as much on hitting specific numbers. Just get into the habit of inputting what you eat. It can be extremely eye opening.
The first time I tracked my food, I had no clue how much I was overeating. All of those sauces and little “snacks” add up friend. Lol.
Stick with it for a week and your body will already start to reap the benefits!!
11. Improper Form
One of the many fitness mistakes that people don’t account for when they think of fitness! Get this one wrong and you can end up with serious injuries.
When you go through your personal training certification, F-O-R-M is drilled into your head.
Not only for injury purposes; but by having proper form, your muscles are being appropriately activated. This decreases the chances of using muscles you’re not even wanting to use in the first place!
Plus, you will see a tremendous amount of growth and progress.
What are some of the best tips for proper form?
- Squats: Keep your weight on your heels, sit back (like you’re sitting in a chair) and push your knees outwards.
- Bench Press: Before pressing any weight up, keep your feet planted on the floor and push through your heels. This helps keep your body stable, your abs engaged and your back protected.
- Neutral Spine: It doesn’t matter if you’re doing squats, push-ups, deadlifts, etc. ALWAYS keep your neck aligned with the rest of your spine. This means no forward flexion (looking down) or hyperextending (looking up at the ceiling).
Do you find yourself making any of these common fitness mistakes? It’s okay if you do! I just truly hope by reviewing these fitness mistakes that many people make, you’re able to realign yourself with your goals! And big point here, don’t miss it. If fitness success was easy… EVERYBODY would be in great shape.
Go above and beyond. Prove to yourself that you, your time, and your effort are completely worth the investment!!
This post was all about the biggest fitness mistakes to avoid in order to see success!
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xoxo,
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