This is information I think lots of women need to hear…… I work on a lot of mindset issues with my clients. It is as important as the physical training and if you can get your body and mind in the best possible shape you will be much happier and more likely to continue reaching your goals. In early May I launched my very first FitM.U.M 12 week online fitness challenge. It started from talking to my clients who always dread winter weight gain and feeling sluggish and unhealthy. They were actually just expecting that it was going to happen every year and all the hard work that they had put in and the results they had achieved over summer would be undone and so continued the cycle, year in and year out. I started to hear this more and more and realised how common it was. I loved the idea of starting a group/community to help keep people accountable in the lead up to winter. I put the call out to gauge interest and I was blown away with the interest and knew it was something I had to do. That was when my 12 week pre-winter accountability challenge was born. We are now just over half way through this challenge and everyone is doing great and have really encouraged each other to stay on track. The thing I have noticed the most during this challenge is that everyone goes through the same feelings. It is never easy for anyone and at different times we will all experience low motivation and ‘fall off the wagon’. If you are reading this and are currently feeling this way then it is important to know that you are certainly not alone and it does not mean the end of your journey. Perhaps you are not currently feeling this way, which is awesome, but I bet you can think of a time that you have felt this way.

No matter how good your intentions are when you set your goals and begin your health and fitness journey, there will more than likely come a time that you will start to feel a slump in motivation and the initial enthusiasm can seem to wear off and it starts to feel a bit ‘too hard’. This is the time that you need to refocus and remember the reasons why you started. How did you feel before you decided to commit to working on yourself and your health and wellness? What are your goals? What is your motivation? If you are feeling like it is becoming harder to maintain everything, you need to break down your goals again and go back to basics. I tell all of my clients that it is important to choose one main area to focus on and take small steps. Once you feel that you have that area under control, then you choose another area to focus on. You need to crawl before you can run and often things get overwhelming when you try and do too much and the slightest hiccup will get you off track.

Instead of trying to have the cleanest diet in the world (which can become overwhelming and hard to maintain when life gets stressful and busy) you should choose one main area of your diet that you feel needs some work (eg. reducing processed carbohydrates, cutting out soft drink, decreasing added artificial sugars etc). Stick with that until you feel like you have got it under control and then add a new mini goal. Small goals which you can achieve and continue to maintain. Do not try to change your entire lifestyle in a few weeks because if it gets hard you are more likely to throw in the towel and let go off all of the progress you have already made. Take a deep breath, reassess where you are at and how far you have come and just simply start again.

There is a big difference between a set back and failure!!

➕Slip ups, distractions, busyness, eating the wrong foods, lack of motivation, particularly bad period week, not exercising for a few days, injuries…. They are all just setbacks and are overcome the minute you decide to put your head down and bum up and get going again!! They do not define your long term goal.

✖The only failure is if you decide that your health, fitness & wellbeing was not worth the effort and you quit completely!! 
 You have all come too far to let that happen! Do not give up on yourself……You are capable of more than you know ~ Believe in yourself!

Kel xx