How to keep your New Year health-kick going beyond January!

Wednesday, 28th December 2022

Read on for – Amazing tips to help your New Year fitness and health kick, plus an amazing New Year gym membership offer to help you on your way!

So the festive season has finished and it is time for your annual ‘get fit and lose weight’ push. New Year fitness and health campaigns are brilliant, and the gyms can be full of well meaning enthusiasm from people who might not normally do the exercise ‘thing’ – and we love to see that! We are committed to your health and wellbeing so we give as much support as possible and welcome everyone through our doors.

But…

Every year we see the predictable drop off in attendance and enthusiasm as the New Year fitness pushes start to fade. It’s almost inevitable as the novelty begins to slip and standard routines and habits re-emerge – we get it totally.

How to keep your New Year health-kick going beyond January!

We have asked out fitness teams at all four of our leisure centres for their top tips to help you establish your New Year health kick as a new lifestyle rather than just a few week craze – because making it a longer lasting part of your new lifestyle sees so many more benefits than a hard push for a few weeks and then letting it drop off.

Here are some of their bits of advice to help you enjoy your fitness journey and keep the momentum going:

• 1.Why are you doing it? Be proud of yourself and make a commitment – be clear on why you want to start this health kick. Having a reason for doing it, a reason that you connect with, makes it far more likely you will stay with it. Do you simply want to look and feel more healthy? Is there a pair of jeans you want to fit into? Do you want to be able to keep up with the grandkids? Identify your reason, really ask yourself ‘why am I going to do this?’ and be proud of the commitment you have made. Good health is a fundamental element of happiness.
• 2.DO NOT STRESS OVER THE SCALES. Your weight is only a small part of your overall results. How do your clothes feel on you? Did that flight of stairs feel easier than it did last week? Are you pleased with how you looked in that photo? Jessica Ennis-Hill, the Team BG gold winning heptathlete, weighed more when she won gold in 2012 than she does since retiring. The numbers on the scales are not the be all and end all.
• 3.Set and track small realistic goals – ‘I want to lose a stone in a month!!’ This is unlikely so when you don’t do it your motivation plummets. Aim for something you are more likely to achieve and when you do it, you’ll want to keep going!
• 4.Monitor progress – the best way to do this is with photos. Take some start photos and then every week or so take a pic in the same place in the same positions – when you start to see results it becomes so much easier to keep going!
• 5.Start simple – in a gym you’ll see people who have clearly been doing this their whole life – but you don’t have to replicate them to fit in! Everyone is welcome in our centres, so you just do you. Keep it simple and achieve what you set out to do.
• 6.Have a plan! – our fitness team create a training plan for all members, tailored to you. Tell them what you want to achieve, what you enjoy, what you don’t like and they’ll create plan for you. This gives you a foundation and a great starting point and helps remove any ‘fear factor’ associated with stepping into the gym
• 7.Drink water! – there’s zero need for fancy detox tea bags or fizzy tablets to flush out your system. Kidneys are the world’s best purifiers on the planet – give your system plenty of fresh water and just let your amazing body do the rest. Everything works better when you are hydrated, including your metabolism, digestion and muscle tissue – you won’t lose weight if you’re dehydrated.
• 8.Focus on food – roughly 80% of losing weight and getting healthy comes from what you put in you. The remaining 20% is training and exercise. Track what you eat and discover what you enjoy – good food is not boring, there is so much you can get stuck in to which tastes amazing and nourishes your body. Get meals and snacks prepared and planned and track what you are actually eating, not what you think you are eating – you might be surprised! We recommend something like www.myfitnesspal.com – their app is a great way to keep tabs of what you are eating and drinking.
• Having said that…
• 9.Reward yourself – if you stop everything you enjoy then you will start to resent your fitness and health kick. So treat yourself – but make sure they are treats and not regular indulgences. In fact, many people on a fitness journey actually report feeling less tempted by treats once they start to feel the benefit of a healthy lifestyle because they really don’t want to undo their good work!
• 10.Mix it up! Boredom is often a big factor in people giving up – so if the idea of your next work-out doesn’t remotely interest you, do something else! Ask our fitness team for ideas, there is so much you could do in order to feel good.
• 11.Something is always better than nothing - there’s no such things as a bad work out. A short walk is better than sitting on the sofa and just doing something helps keep momentum
• 12.Try a fitness class – we have so many creative and fun classes where everyone is welcome. They are a great way of doing exercise without it feeling like a chore. View our timetables here.
• 13.Don’t miss a Monday! Statistically you are more likely to have a good healthy week if you do all the right things on a Monday – fact! So have some good meals and snacks prepared and get to the gym.
• 14.Use your FREE Personal Trainer sessions – one of our brilliant member benefits is a FREE personal trainer session EVERY MONTH. These are a fantastic way of keeping momentum and enthusiasm going, and the sessions are tailored for you and your goals. They won’t be screaming in your ear or putting you through hell (unless you enjoy that of course!) – the sessions are something to look forward to and are a chance for you to ask questions, get new ideas and

New Year gym membership offer

To help get you going, we have created an amazing heavily discounted New Year membership offer, called ‘Happy New You!’

Find the details here, but with up front or direct debit payment options and £0 Joining Fee, this is a brilliant way to start that new, long lasting, fitness journey.

Happy New Year – here’s to a healthy and active 2023!