In the beginning of this Lose Weight program, I led you through an exercise in which you wrote down your goals and reasons for taking your health and fitness to the next level. You wrote down five goals, and for each, you wrote down why you wanted to achieve it.
I hope that understanding your deeper reasoning has sharpened your focus as you’ve cooked up healthy meals and hit the gym. I call it your ‘why power.’ It’s that thing that lights a fire under your butt and gets you up and at ‘em when you feel like giving up.
Check In With Your Initial Goals
This week, I want you to spend some time reflecting on your goals and the ‘why’s’ behind them. Take a look back at what you wrote down at the beginning of this journey.
Now that you’re six weeks into making healthy changes to your lifestyle, are you still on track to make your goals a reality? Have you already achieved any? Have any of your goals changed?
If you’re on track, give yourself a moment to feel gratitude and excitement for your commitment! This is a great opportunity to strengthen your commitment to those goals. You may even want to consider setting some new goals. And if you don’t feel on-track, don’t beat yourself up. Instead, think about what changes you can make now to get yourself back on the path.
It’s totally natural that our initial drivers in a weight-loss program are aesthetic. But as we start to feel our health and fitness improve, we often notice that our mindset and priorities shift. I’ve watched people make massive career changes, finally get their finances in order, and really look at life differently after getting their fitness in order. And it could happen to you. You just have to do the work and put stock in what you’re truly capable of. So if getting abs is no longer top on your list of goals, that’s a-okay.
I like to repeat the exercise of writing down my goals and their ‘why’s’ once a month. So now that I’ve got your mind going, try it again now! You’ve been working hard, and it’s key to reconnect with what’s important to you. This exercise keeps me motivated and helps me bring my A-game even when I feel like waving a white flag. Just remember that you don’t have to set new goals or be working toward a ton of them at one time. Small steps can create massive change.
Sure, your ‘why’s’ will help push you through tough workouts—but they’ll also help you stand tall in the face of any challenge. I know they’ll help you charge through these last two weeks of the Lose Weight program—and beyond.
Put Your ‘Why’ To Use
With that, kick up your workouts this week and put the power of progressive overload to work for you! Remember, that just means doing a little more or getting a little better each time you repeat a workout.
Here are a few specific ways you could do that:
- Do more reps. I prescribed four sets of 12 reps for each of your strength-training exercises. Stick to 12 reps for your first three sets. Then, on your last set, do as many reps as you can. Keep your form, but go for broke and see how many total reps you can hit.
- Bump up your Steps Challenge from 15,000 steps to 18,000 steps.
- Add an additional day of the Steps Challenge.
- Do your HIIT workout for 17 minutes, instead of 12.
Pick one (or more!) of these options and kick your results into high gear. Here’s to CRUSHING your goals, champ!