Change Gradually to Get the Fit Body You Deserve

I know you want to get a better body. I know you’re tired of being embarrassed to wear summer clothes. But you can’t go from where you are to looking like a fitness model or bodybuilder instantly. As frustrating as it might be, gradual change is the only viable choice, no matter how much of a hurry you are in.

This is a particularly tough concept for us guys to accept. It’s our nature to jump in to something new with both feet first, damn the torpedoes and full steam ahead and all that. Many of us sit in front of a computer all week at the office, then stupidly expect to be able to beat our teenager at basketball on the weekend. We have a hard time accepting that we’re not high school athletes anymore.

That said, we should look at this logically. You don’t look the way you want, or you wouldn’t be here right now. And as much as you don’t like to admit it, the reason you don’t have the body you want is because of the way you live your life. If you want to make major changes in your appearance, you’re going to have to make some pretty significant changes in your life. It’s going to take a lot to go from where you are now to having the body you’re dreaming of. But there are two problems with making the transition all at once.

The first is death. If you are really out of shape, you could kill yourself trying to change too fast. That’s why you should see a doctor before starting a major workout program. If you try to go from little or no exercise & pigging out to major workouts and eating like a body builder in one leap, your body is going to react badly. Too much change too fast is no good for you. Your body needs time to adjust to changing demands and nutrition. You’ll get sick or hurt yourself.

If you change everything all at
once, your head is going to freak out too. You’ll find it hard to do everything in the exercise program, and your gut will demand its daily extra-cheese pizza. You won’t see any significant results right away, and you’ll give up on the whole thing in disgust.

Last of all, if you do change everything at once and succeed in avoiding a physical or mental breakdown, you’ll be missing something else. You won’t know which changes were effective and which weren’t. Are the dietary changes working, or was your new diet useless with great results from the workouts? Would you get better results from making more dietary changes or working out more? If you change everything at once, there’s no way to tell.

None of this would be a big deal if you immediately start with a program that let you get fit without having to adjust anything. But that seldom happens. Usually, you need to make changes as you go along to keep the progress coming. You can’t tell which things to adjust if you dived right into the deep end and changed everything at one.

Making gradual changes is a better way. By changing one thing at a time, say skipping the second double-cheeseburger at lunch, you can start moving in the right direction without too much stress. Your body and mind can easily adapt to small changes. You won’t get depressed and quit because it is too hard. Instead, you will have your first small success under your belt and be ready to move on to the next step.

So there’s the secret to success. Change your diet and workout program gradually to succeed. You won’t get there as fast as you would if you could dive in head first and change everything at once, but if that worked, you would already have the body you want, right?