The Secret to Fitness Success

Some of you will be disappointed to read about this secret. It is not a pill or a 3 1/2 minute workout that instantly shreds your physique. It's not something you can do for three weeks and then kick back and admire your six-pack abs. I'm talking about consistency.

Cheat days often exceed the value of the "good days" that preceded them. Weight-loss over a short period of time is often followed by weight gain over a long period of time. Save yourself the trouble and make small gains CONSISTENTLY. It's a simple concept. If you expend 500 more calories than you consume each day, then you will lose a pound per week. That doesn't sound like much until you realize that is 52 pounds in a year. If you want serious weight-loss take the long-term approach.

If you're an athlete or have fitness goals beyond weight-loss the same concept applies. Training/exercise is a stress you put on your body. When you recover from that stress, your body adapts or increases fitness. Think of your fitness goal as a finished house. You can't snap your fingers and have a home. You have to build it brick by brick, and day by day. Everytime you stress your body and recover, you've added a brick. Keep in mind that just as training occurs brick by brick, so does detraining. When you allow excuses to get in the way of your goals, your house will deteriorate. When you remove the stress (training/exercise) from your body, you lose the adaptations (fitness) that came along with that stress. In other words starting and stopping training programs is the same as building and tearing down the same room over and over. You'll never finish your home.

Train consistently and you'll be pleasantly surprised at the progress you make. Would you rather live in a house built with care day by day, or one hastily thrown up quickly and then left sitting to crumble and then rebuilt time and time again?