It can be really hard to start a new fitness routine and even more difficult to actually
stick with it. Maybe you lack motivation. Maybe you're frustrated that you're not
seeing results fast enough, and on top of all that, you're sore from muscles you didn't even
know you had. Or maybe it's that your diet is so restrictive, you feel like you're punishing
yourself. First, I want you to know that you're not alone. We all go through these
as we're first starting out learning how to get into the fitness world, and that's why I
wanted to share with you the five most common beginner fitness mistakes that I see with my
coaching clients, I made myself, and so many of us make as we're getting into the fitness world.
Hopefully, you'll see some of the mistakes you might be making so that you can feel
confident in how to fix them to be successful and reach your goals. Let's get started!
Mistake #1: Don't go too hard too fast. In order to achieve your goals as quickly as possible, you might feel
like you have to train like you're in the middle of a Rocky Training movie scene, but whether you're
using weights, learning how to do cardio, doing HIIT, riding a bike... Going too hard too fast can
lead to injury, especially if your body isn't used to work outs. Your body needs to adjust to your new
workouts, even if your mind is telling you go, go, go! I have to do this. That way, as you progressively
add the intensity, your body is ready for it, and you don't injure yourself. For example, if you're
lifting weights too heavy for you in your current state, your body is going to recruit extra muscles
and tendons and all it can do to avoid injury. It's kind of like recruiting the Army Reserves. Then,
those muscles might not be ready to hold up either and those aren't as strong, so what you're going
to wind up doing is injuring tendons or hurting yourself with bursitis or tendonitis, and that's
going to make it so you can't even lift anything, even the lighter weights, until you recover.
So, start light, use correct form, and progressively add more weight as you're able to continually push
yourself with good form. And just like with running and cardio, you can't run a marathon on day one. You
have to train your body to be able to hold up to something like that or you're going to hurt
yourself. One way to set yourself up for success is to have small wins that'll help you stay motivated
along the way, so setting those small goals and then hitting them will allow you to increasingly
add more difficult goals as you continually progress. Think about Serena Williams. She was not
born with that body! She worked hard. She did things day over day over day, and then eventually, now,
she looks like she does. That's why it's important not to compare yourself to others. She put in a
lot of work, and you can't look like that on day one. That's just not how it happens, but in full
transparency, I have not seen any baby pictures of Serena Williams, so maybe maybe she was born
that way. Your body is a machine... Well, not really a machine, but pretty much like a machine. You feed
it. You have it burn energy and it performs to a certain level. You're going to give fuel. It's
going to perform at optimum levels if it's well maintained and given the right type of fuel, so how
does this work with fitness? Well, a lot of us start out by doing excessive amounts of cardio, using
the machine a ton, and not really eating enough, and restricting our calories, so not giving the machine
enough gas. So, what happens with a machine? Well, it stops working, so our body is the same way. Sure, it
might run quickly and nicely, and you might lose a little bit of weight in the beginning, but it's not
sustainable. Your body is going to become unhappy. It's not going to work the way that you want it
to, and it's just not a sustainable way to maintain progress. Plus, you're going to feel miserable. The
more successful way is to follow a well-balanced nutrition plan, and one that is actually set up
macros-based to reach your goals. People talk a lot about protein, myself included, as super helpful for
building muscle-repairing muscle and all sorts of other tissue repair, but it is not the only
macronutrient that we need to be paying attention to. We also need to be paying attention to healthy
fats and complex carbs, and those make up a huge percentage of what we're eating as well. And
healthy fats... I'm talking about avocados, nuts, fatty fish, olive oil, foods that are high in healthy
omega-3 fatty acids that help our body absorb vitamins, like vitamin D, vitamin E, and vitamin A. If
you don't have enough of them, it will have a negative impact on your health. You might have hair loss. You
might get sick more often because your immune system isn't running as well as it should, and
it could even show up in skin rashes. Complex carbs are also extremely important, and we're
talking oats and whole grains, potatoes, brown rice, all sorts of vegetables and fruits. All of these
types of foods will help give us energy. We want to reduce the number of processed carbs we're having...
Foods like baked goods and fried foods and sugary sodas or sugary drinks. Those all will have a lot
of added sugars, and they are not good for us. They can lead to inflammation and glucose issues in our
blood, and then that's going to all lead to insulin resistance, diabetes, and the whole gamut of stuff
that so many of us are struggling with if we're overweight. Now, diets are never easy and I'm not
here to tell you to go on a diet. What I am going to tell you is that the more balanced and macro-focused
your food is, the better your body is going to run. Now, that's why I love a cleanish approach
to clean eating where I'm getting the majority of my foods, with the healthy fats, the complex carbs,
and the lean protein, but I also have a cookie or a slice of pizza or whatever here and there every
once in a while. The idea is to be consistently on track with your goals the majority of the time, and
that allows for a little bit of that "ish" in the clean-ish lifestyle. Next is don't beat yourself up.
Don't expect results immediately. You may look in the mirror and feel like nothing's changed. You may
step on the scale and feel like the weight is the exact same, and all of that might make you start to
think all of this hard work isn't worth it. Now, for some people like I've mentioned in other videos,
weighing yourself can actually be very beneficial, and research has shown that the more you weigh
yourself on a daily basis, the less weight you put on in the future, and the more weight loss you can
maintain, but sometimes, if we're not not seeing the progress we want, especially as beginners, when
we don't see that scale go down, things start to go bad. And we are not happy, and it's really hard.
Your weight can fluctuate throughout the day, throughout the week, and throughout the month.
Bowel movements, menstrual cycles, hormones, water intake, inflammation... All these things can have an
impact on our weight, so what I tell my clients is if you're doing the things you're supposed
to be doing, if you're eating the right foods, getting the right daily movement, and getting in
those strength training workouts, you will lose weight. You just have to do it consistently and
be patient, and that's hard to do when our weight doesn't budge on the scale. So, here are some things
to pay attention to instead of that number on the scale. Are you making gains in the gym? Do you feel
stronger? Are you able to have PRs day after day? Do you feel like you have some more space in your
pants or your bra? Do you feel better? Do you have more energy? Are you feeling more motivated? Pay
attention to those cues because those are just as important as the scale. We've just all been
trained to only think it's about the weight. It's about the body fat percentage change, and when you
add more muscle to your body, you may not even lose weight because the muscle is replacing the fat, so
you could look way more toned at the same weight, but you have more muscle versus fat. So, don't beat
yourself up if you're not seeing the change as quickly as you would like. I promise consistency
pays off. Trust the process, and you will get there. This is the long play because you're choosing a
lifestyle that you want to do for the rest of your life, not just a quick fix that isn't going to be
sustainable. Next up doing the same thing over and over. Now, doing the same thing over and over can
be helpful. For example, with strength training, if you consistently do the same exercises over
a period of time, your body is going to get used to those movements and you're going to be able to
progressively add in more weight and recruit more muscle fibers in order to grow that area and get
better and bette. If you find that you're trying a workout and it's just not working for you and you're
losing motivation, you dread going to do it, and it's not something you're wanting to do ever,
listen to that alignment and listen to that voice in your head that's telling you you need to change
things up. Perhaps it's working out from home and you're just tired of that and you want to go to a
gym or vice versa. Or maybe you just really don't like running and doing cardio all the time, so try
something like strength training. And then, once you find something you like, then try to be consistent
with it. Find something that you enjoy that's going to help you reach your goals because if you don't
enjoy it, it's going to be a really big lift every time you have to go do it, and honestly, that's why
I love strength training. It's because I'm not a huge fan of cardio, but give me some weights and
let me feel strong and I am all for it. And that might work for you, or something else might be a
good fit for you. Another way that we might want to change things up is to pay attention to if
you're plateauing. If you feel like you're doing things consistently but you just can't make any
big progress, and you're really trying to figure it out after having tried, maybe it's time to change
things up so that you can actually get to that next level, like adding in more weight, running
faster, or changing up your momentum or your tempo. Add in more reps or something else that's
going to actually increase the intensity of what you're doing. Number five is not getting enough rest.
Sleep is super important. I know, another hot take! Lacey says, "Sleep is important!" but it really is. You
got to hear me out on this. Sleep is so valuable for weight maintenance, weight loss, peace of mind,
emotional health, and so many other things, which I talk about in my video on why sleep is important,
but what you need to know is the importance of resting. So, when you're sleep deprived, your
body releases hormones and those hormones actually make you feel hungrier throughout the day and less
satisfied with the food that you're eating. So, on those days, you're going to be starving the whole
day, trying to eat more food, actually eating it, and then not feeling satisfied, so that's no good
and we don't want that. Sleep allows our body to rest and recover. That's when the muscle is getting
built. Studies have shown that people who get poor sleep as compared to those who are getting five to
eight hours a night have more health problems. They have more heart issues. They're more likely
to have inflammation. When you're using your body in workouts and you're doing strength training,
for example, your body has these micro tears in the muscles, and those micro tears need to repair
and recover in order to actually grow new muscle. I know it sounds kind of crazy with the micro tears,
but it's totally normal and it's how we build muscle, so when you're not getting enough sleep,
your body isn't able to recover or repair those muscles, which means you're more likely to get
injured. Those injuries set us back, and they're painful, and we don't want that, especially if
you're really sore and fatigued. Getting sleep is vital but that doesn't mean you have to be
completely sitting on your butt on the couch all day. Instead, I recommend doing something
that's called active rest. I know it sounds like an oxymoron, but it's actually an awesome thing.
So, you are in active rest if you're doing things that have a light-to-moderate level of intensity.
Walking, stretching, foam-rolling, doing a light jog... All of these are things that allow our
body to kind of get that blood circulating and also allow us to get our joints moving.
Both of those are going to help with muscle repair, with the circulation, and with less
inflammation because you're actually getting your body to move. So, for example, on rest
days for me, I won't do strength training but instead, I will do active rest. I will get 10,000
steps in a day and make sure I prioritize my walking, and I will get some mobility work
in to make sure that my muscles and everything is loose, and I'm focusing on my range of motion.
And all of that helps when I'm on my strength training days to push myself as hard as I can.
If you need help and support on specific workouts and nutrition recommendations to reach your goals,
check out my one-on-one coaching. I would love to help you, and I'll see you in the next video!