How to keep the momentum going beyond a 30 day challenge

Amy and Patricia recently completed our 30 day challenge, which had them focus on incorporating healthy eating and exercise into their lives each day. We followed along on their journey on our Facebook group, but just because the 30 days is over it doesn't mean it's time to stop! Fitness expert Heather Wilson-Philips and dietician Nishta Saxena reveal their best tips for staying motivated well after that first month is behind you. 

Accountability

Let a friend or family member join you on the journey; let them know about your goals. When we tell people about our goals, they may check in with us about progress. Even better, have someone you like join you in the process, so you can have fun and be accountable to each other!

Reward yourself (but not with food)

Small rewards that work for you, visit a cultural place you want to see, a show, or an experience or activity, movies, manicures, coffee or lunch dates, doing a class you are looking forward to, buying a book you wanted.   

Sticky notes

Place sticky notes on your bathroom mirror with positive self-talk messages, and reminders of how far you come, say thank you to yourself in the mirror daily

Get mindful

Check in with yourself daily, perhaps before sleeping, “how does your body feel when you treat it well?”, notice the difference when you revert to old patterns, how does your body feel? Get out of your head and into your body

Removal of debris

If through the process, you found certain eating scenarios, people, places, foods or events don’t support your current goals…perhaps they are triggering of old behaviours, question their place in your life and how they either help or hurt your goals and vision of health, edit as necessary

Surround yourself as much as possible with people, places and things that are supportive of your journey

Get plenty of sleep and water

Sleep is going to allow you to keep feeling refreshed and recover better so you are at your best for the next workout. Also keep drinking the water whether it is a workout day or not. This will allow your body to flush out the toxins and keep joints lubricated for any physical activity.

Change it up

• Tempo: essentially the pace at which you're doing an exercise, as this can prevent you from plateauing so time under tension is important as it is the amount of time/strain placed on a muscle as you exercise
• Type of exercises: Switch things up between strength training based or cardio based.
• Increase or decrease resistance: if things are getting to easy it's time to change up the weight, challenge yourself
•  How often and how much time are you dedicating:  if you're only working out one a week by going to your favourite class.  Keep going to that class, however try to increase working out to three times per week and one of those days can be your favourite class and the other two days a combination of strength/cardio in a single session

Keep documenting your workouts

This will allow you to see what is working and possibly not working so you can make changes if you need to. It also allows you to see your actual progression cause you'll be noting how long you worked out, how much weight you used during your session, and also how your feeling from certain workouts.