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Every week I hear “Dave, I really want to____________” – fill in almost any fitness thing from losing weight to having a six pack. And also every week, I hear ” I used to be so _____________” Again, fill in things like thin, fit, strong and sadly also fill in happy.

Neither of these are fitness realities. These are fitness wishes, goals, dreams, memories.

In order to truly GET FIT NOW, you need to live in your reality. Are you overweight? Seriously overweight? Do you have the eating habits of a 14 year old boy? Do you eat in restaurants often (and I am not just talking about fast food here, many nice restaurants have salads with over 1000 calories)

Look at these things and get familiar with your reality. Accept it. Keep a food and exercise diary — there is a free food diary under links on my 4 fit bodies site — free FOOD DIARY.

Nothing fancy but just print it out — it is one page. Carry it around for a week and write down everything you eat or drink. Check off your fruit and vegetables and water — see where you are lacking on these. And also see the empty calories.

It is truly the only way to see things for real. Anding getting real is the only way to change.

Now, let’s look at your fitness. If I were coming to the gym to do personal training, I would show up a half hour or more early. I would punch out that 30-45 minutes of cardio and then be ON TIME for my session. I would work HARD during my session and LISTEN. If my trainer said in order to meet my goal, I have to do 45 minutes of cardio 4 times a week and do strength training twice, I would actually do that. I would not show up late or fail to warm up or blow off my personal training sessions.

Now, I get that things come up. They do for everyone. It is just that you must weigh whether it is really “critical” vs. “important” Critical things like sick children, broken down cars, big clients in town unexpectedly, job interviews that came out of nowhere, spouse needing you to come get them or your children — those are all critical. But, there are important things that you could adjust for. Wanting, YES WANTING, as opposed to NEEDING to stay late at work is a major reason people blow off their workout. Is it critical that you stay tonight? Or can you come in early tomorrow? Or catch up at home after the kids go to bed…..yes, I know you love your personal time but think about it.

This is not meant to sound harsh, it is meant to help you understand the reality that you live in and that good health and fitness can be a major part of that. And the sooner you get to seeing where you are, the faster you can to where you want be.

Are you itching for some weight loss. Lots of people this time of year hit a wall of reality about their resolution to lose weight and start to badslide. TRAGIC. Because after 30 days, your new habits are starting to be just that — HABITUAL.

So if you are starting to feel a bit frustrated with your results so far, remember that you did not gain weight in a few weeks so it is going to be a longer ride. And you are making progress. I have one client, John, who is a shell of his formal self. So much so that he was on the cover of the local Douglas County newspaper. He looks amazing and is great at realizing that this is a lifelong commitment.

If you are not feeling committed yet, then try kicking it up a notch for the next 2 weeks. The best and easiest way to kick up your workout is to increase your cardio. It will make you feel powerful and stronger so add 15 minutes to your daily workout, or add a weekend run (feel free to join me and my running crew at Sweetwater at 8am on Saturday morning), add a walk with your spouse after dinner, try going for a bike ride on all the great trails we have around here, call up a friend for tennis or sign up for a league — see what I mean — try something new or something fun and watch your resolve come back.

Well, first, it is snowing here in Douglasville. A rare thing so I just had to tell everyone!!

Staying motivated can be a tough thing and there are a lot of people this time of year who are new to fitness and sadly many will not stick with it — I wish every single one of them the best of success with their fitness and weight loss goals but the sad reality is in the percentages.

So here are a few tips to keep you rolling:

- KEEP IT SIMPLE — While group fitness classes can be very motivating, it is also easier to blow them off when you are not feeling like working out because they occur at a specific time. If you decide that you are blowing off your group fitness class because of the schedule, then go straight to the gym for a personal solo workout. NO STOP — no excuses. You go straight to the gym and commit to just standing on the treadmill. Yes, just stand there. Trust me, going to the gym will shake this laziness. You are NOT too busy – you are just not feeling like it. So commit to just going there and stand there. You will do one of three things. You will go to the gym for your group fitness class, you will go to the gym and work out on your own or you will blow it off completely. Which brings me to the next tip….

- When you blow off a workout session, OWN IT. Don’t justify it by claiming to be too busy, too tired, having too much work. The entire country is too tired, too busy and has too much work — that is the world we live in. If you blow off a personal training session, a solo workout or a group fitness class, own it. Stand up and admit that you let laziness and life sneak in and then get to the gym and get over it with a good hard workout.

- Wear a pedometer sometimes. While I see the wearing of a pedometer to be a total pain in the ass to do every day, I do see the value in wearing it once in a while. Did you do more than 10,000 steps. If not, try adding a walk after dinner with your spouse (this takes a whole 1/2 hour so don’t claim you don’t have time). Try adding an extra 10-15 minutes to your treadmill workout or add a warm up on the treadmill before your class. Doing that on a regular basis will add up to a lot of extra pounds of weight loss every year.

Check back for more tips to keep you motivated from Douglasville Personal Trainer Dave Hansey.

And to everyone here in Douglasville, be careful in the snow!!

Are you hitting the gym a few times a week and still not getting the results you want??

I see a lot of people at the gym I train at here in Douglasville doing the same thing over and over and then whining that it must be their body or something. Ummmm, no! It would be your workout. Your body is the most complex scientific machine around and yes, there are lots of things we do not know about it. But we do know, that it responds in a specific way when give the correct stimuli.

For weight management or weight loss, it is a simple equation (calories in – calories out = calories gained). So if your body does not burn off more calories than you eat, you gain weight. There are many ways to stop that. One is more cardio. If you do hard cardio for 45 minutes every day, your body will respond. The second is strength training. Sorry, but everyone needs strength training. Cardio, fitness classes, walking – those are all good for being active, but to build muscles you need to lift heavy weights. Building more muscle on your body will not “bulk you up”, it will give you that fit, tight look that you want. And last but certainly not least, you can’t eat whatever you want. Well, if whatever you want is vegetables, fruit and whole grains, then munch away. But working out does not give you a license to pig out. Sadly most of us in our workouts only burn a couple of hundred calories (not the 700-800 that you may be calculating) A couple of hundred calories a day means about 1/2 to 1 pound weight loss a week without eating more. So don’t wreck your hard work at the gym with a bad diet.

For those of you who are more worried about building a lean physique (6-pack, tight tummy, lean body, cut biceps, etc) — all of those things come from strength training. Trust me I will all I had to do was go for a run to get a ripped body, but it is not the case. That tight lean look whether you are a man or a woman comes from lifting heavy weights as well as reducing your body fat so those muscles can be seen.

So to wrap it all up, if you are working out consistently and doing a good solid workout while you are at the gym that includes strength training and cardio, your body will SHOW IT!! END OF STORY!!

Personal training works — plain and simple. A board certified trainer such as myself we have techniques that are scientifically proven to change your body.

But here is the kicker……

They only work when you do them AND the other things we tell you to do….

If I tell a personal training client to come in and do 1/2 hour of cardio before training, then that is what they should do.

Don’t skip the cardio and show up late to the session with me (or blow it off all together) and then whine when you don’t see results. Pretty hard to get the results when you are not even present!

And when I say to do your cardio for 30 minutes (or 45 or hour or whatever) then i really mean that. Don’t flit about the gym picking at some of the strength moves you are going to do with me. Do the cardio. I promise you will get enough strength training when you train with me — you don’t need to try to “help out” by doing some of the moves prior. But you can “help out” by doing what I tell you.

I see a lot of people whine about their results but they all have one thing in common — they cheat! And sadly they only cheat themselves