Fitness Corner: Be patient with the fitness process

Thinking of starting an exercise program? Or getting back into a program? Or changing up your program? Or doing something different because you want different results?

Perhaps you are motivated to see physical change, such as weight loss, muscle gain, fat loss, changing your body composition (the ratio of body fat to lean muscle mass), or maybe just fitting more comfortably into the clothes that you used to fit into easily.

You can also set performance goals for yourself such as achieving a PR (personal record) in whatever your chosen activity is, taking on a new type of activity or challenge, or maybe your goal is simply to keep up with your young children or grandchildren. If you play a sport, you might be driven to gain strength, power and speed to perform better on the field or court.

But for now, you’re here in the present, thinking you’d best get started. Your chosen goals probably seem a long way off, because they are!

Between those two points there is a long period of working hard while existing in the present moment. For weeks and months and even years. It can be the toughest part of the fitness process.

We all must live in that transformation period for however long it takes.

How can we find that patience to stay within the change process, allowing it to take exactly as much time as it needs to? All the while we must maintain energy and motivation and sometimes make hard choices that require discipline and willpower in the short term but create habits and routines in the long term. There will be various levels of discomfort and what our brain would like to label “deprivation.” Our goals that we started pursuing so enthusiastically, once we decided they were a good idea, can sometimes seem very unattainable.

This is all normal. But there’s a powerful part of the brain that does not like that! It starts telling us that the couch looks better than that workout and the giant bag of chips look better than the protein and vegetables (just this once because I’ve been working so hard). This part of the brain might even convince us to give up entirely at particularly tough moments.

We must be patient with ourselves as we navigate this roadmap.

Fortunately, we have other parts of the brain that can help us to remember that:

“Micro-change” will happen. Eventually, you will see some degree of positive change; even a tiny amount can help boost your morale. It will lift your confidence and remind you that you’re on the right track, propelling you forward.

This is a long process. Even a GLP-1 such as Ozempic — all the rage these days because these drugs make it much easier to reach desired weight loss — take time to produce results. An instant transformation doesn’t exist even if there is a drug to boost success rates.

Discomfort is necessary. If you don’t experience uncomfortable feelings at some points, then are you really working toward powerful change? You don’t have to welcome those feelings but don’t push them away.

Trust yourself and trust the resources you have tapped into to create your plan. Don’t start second guessing your decision-making within the first month or so or try to change it up too soon.

You aren’t the first person to go through this. Lots of people have spent time transforming themselves and have felt the same feelings about the same parts of this process as you. If they can do it, so can you.

Inspiration and support are available to you. You can work with a coach/trainer, you can chat with AI, you can connect with people online who are trying to reach similar goals, you can seek inspiration from writings and pictures and posts . . . the possibilities are endless. I personally love Reddit for this sort of thing as there is an information-packed subreddit (group) for anything you could possibly want to achieve.

Finally, take your time. A more measured path toward your goals often leads to more lasting and realistic long-term change. It can also help reduce potential overuse or overtraining injuries, which can derail it all. Why rush your way through it?

When you meet your transformed future self, he or she will thank you if you stay patient with yourself, persist in the process, and stay committed to what you set out to do!

Coach Pritam Potts is a writer and strength coach. After many years of training athletes and clients of all ages as co-owner of Edmonds-based Advanced Athlete LLC, she now lives in Dallas, Texas. She writes about health & wellbeing, grief & loss, love & life at infinitecapability.substack.com and www.advancedathlete.com.