Have you ever accomplished anything great with an inconsistent effort? Unless failure is considered a great achievement, you probably haven’t. You must exercise consistently to get the results you want! It blows my mind how many people don’t even try to be consistent with their diet and exercise programs and complain about not seeing results. Even the best programs are ineffectual if they are not followed on a consistent basis.
Women are sometimes afraid at the idea of adding muscle due to their fear of becoming “bulky.” Relax; it’s a little harder to add that kind of muscle mass than you think.
Consistent spaced small meals – One of the most important things that you can do with your health in general is to keep a nice even keel with respect to your blood sugar. When you eat a donut and coffee for breakfast and then nothing until lunch then you will get a big blood sugar spike and then a drop soon after and be just dragging your way until lunch. If you eat consistently small but evenly spaced meals every couple of hours during the day then you will not have this blood sugar problem.
Consistent meal sizes – If you make sure that you eat 200 – 400 calorie meals then this will go hand in hand with the point above. Having even sized meals will mean that you are not bloated after one meal and then hungry after the next. Of course there may be a problem with dinner being a little bigger and an evening meal being a little smaller but overall this consistent eating will make you feel much better and your weight loss will be more consistent.
Remember that consistency is the key. Focus on changing your lifestyle. Do not focus on “dieting“. When you focus on dieting, you are looking at this whole weight loss thing as something temporary. Diets work ONLY to get those pounds off, but what are you going to do after the diet is done? “Living a healthy lifestyle is a marathon, not a short sprint down the road.”
Learning How to build Consistency
There are a lot of ways you can gradually build momentum. Here are some examples:
Find an accountability buddy—someone who knows about your plan and is willing to give you a push when you feel like slacking off.
Join a Team or make a Fitness Friend. It’s always harder to let someone else down than it is to let yourself off the hook.
Employ an excuse buster. Find a friend, family member whose judgment and opinion you respect. Each time you find yourself thinking about skipping an exercise session or blowing your meal plan, write down the reason for your choice. Share this reason with your excuse buster and get her honest opinion about whether the reason for your choice is reasonable or just an excuse. You’ll probably find that this makes it a lot harder for you to believe your own rationalizations.
Take it one day at a time, stay focused, and stay consistent.