5 Reasons Your Fitness Routine May not Be Delivering Results

Most of us know how good exercising is for our health and try to get in some sort of physical activity each day. However, just because you are putting in all the time and effort needed for a successful fitness routine, does not necessarily transfer into getting the results that we need or want. There are many factors that come into play when trying to provide ourselves with the best fitness routine and how we manipulate these factors can be extremely important. It can mean the difference between getting results we want fast or stalling in our fitness routine. Here we will take a look at some of the factors that can affect our fitness routines and discover ways to overcome them.

1. Not increasing your workout intensity. If you have been performing the same fitness routine over and over for months on end, you have probably noticed your results slowing. Once your body has gotten use to your workout, you just mindlessly go through the steps without thinking, and you do not have to work as hard to get through your fitness routine. This causes your results to slow. If you want to get back on track, you need to find a way to step it up. You can workout more often or longer, pick up the pace or add more weight to your routine. Anything that will keep you engaged and get you working harder.
2. Increasing your workout intensity too quickly. In today’s fitness world, it is all about pushing yourself harder and through the pain to get the results that you want. However, there has to be a line somewhere that tells us to slow down, do not push yourself too far and take a rest every now and then. If you do workout too hard, you will find that your muscles begin to break down and your body is unable to repair itself. You may notice soreness, muscle aches and headaches, insomnia or not being able to perform your workouts all the way through. So, take some time off to allow your body to recuperate and then slowly ease back into your fitness routine.
3. Your eating habits are the same. You can’t expect to lose weight by exercising alone. You need a healthy, well-rounded diet to reinforce the good you are doing at the gym. Your body needs the proper fuel to power through your workouts and repair itself at the end of the day. You have to eat enough to get you through your workout, but you also have to watch how much you eat because it is a lot easier to overeat excess calories and fat than it is to burn them. So, you may never be able to do enough exercises to burn them all. Many people find it necessary to keep a food journal to keep track of what they eat and ensure that they do not eat too much or too little.
4. You reward yourself with food. As stated earlier, you have to watch what you eat no matter how much you exercise and rewarding yourself with food is a slippery slope. It is fine to indulge in a treat every now and then, but if you find yourself at a drive-through every time you leave the gym, then you are doing more harm than good. You can try to correct this by using the food journal method above and tracking everything you eat or finding something better to reward yourself with like new workout clothes, a nice dress, some workout equipment or a movie night with your spouse. Something that will keep you away from fattening foods will work out perfectly.
5. Not getting enough sleep. We all have hectic schedules these days, but that is no excuse to trade your sleep time for your workout time. You have to find a way to schedule in the proper amount of sleep each and every night. Our bodies need this down time to repair itself and relax. Also, our bodies release the chemicals that cause and hinder food cravings at night, and when we do not get enough sleep these chemicals will become imbalanced and cause us to overeat or not eat at all. Therefore, it is important to schedule both our workouts and the proper amount of time to sleep. We have to treat both of them as a priority, as they will not be able to work alone.

It can be hard trying to find the balance in our fitness routine, and if you are not seeing the results that you want, it may be time to look back over your fitness routine and see if some of the above factors could be affecting your workouts.

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