1. You move pain free
Getting out of the car is easier, picking your grandchild up is now effortless, or bending down to pull weeds doesn’t bother your back. These are all signs that you are gaining strength, mobility, and stability, in short, you are progressing. Not only is moving better and more effortlessly going to improve your quality of life, moving better will allow you do to MORE. With a greater capacity to play more sports, train harder, train more often, your progress towards hitting your goals will accelerate. If your current training program is giving you the ability to return to old activities you once loved and did when you were “in your prime”, your training program is working. You just need to ensure you are working hard enough and using your new ability to move pain free to up your level of activity.
2. Clothes fit better
Just because you aren’t losing weight on the scale, doesn’t mean you aren’t making progress. One of the first thing I ask my clients who are looking to lose weight is, asking “how do your clothes fit?”. If you are having to tighten your belt up a bit more, or your favorite dress shirt has a bit more room, you have made progress. Often times when people begin working out for the first time, they gain weight. This can be rather disappointing, especially if you are trying to lose weight. However, keep in mind that when you first start exercising, your muscles are going to absorb more water, you will hold a bit more water and also gain some muscle mass. This is not a bad thing, for the majority of my clients, regardless of their goals, I always try to add some muscle to their frame. The reason being, the more muscle we have the more calories we burn at a resting state, our metabolism increases.
3. Your mood has improved
Do you wake up with a bit more energy? Do things that would typically bother you not have as much of a negative impact on your mental state? If so, then you are on the right track. Your discipline in the gym has seeped into other areas of your life. That grueling 6am workout you hit 3 days a week makes the rest of your weekly tasks feel like a breeze, this is called building mental toughness. This is one of the first benefits I encourage my clients to focus on, as it doesn’t take long to build this mental toughness and reap the rewards of it. Imagine if you weren’t as stressed out each day? Or if you were eager to take on more at work, what could that do for your career? Take your training seriously and find out.
