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Fitness column: If you fail at fitness, just try again

Steve Wells

Many people feel guilty for their so-called fitness failures. Stop it! Don’t feel bad for dropping out and retrying fitness over and over. In fact, you should pat yourself on the back for getting back up one more time and trying again. Anyone can give up after failing at something a couple of times.

Do you think that you are the only one to drop out? Many fit people drop out all the time. Everyone gets knocked off the horse by something in life. Try a different strategy, but don’t give up.

Is yo-yo fitness the way to go? No. In theory we should be consistent, good little campers. There is however, this little thing called reality that gets in the way. There are a million good reasons to avoid exercise and health food. Exercise takes effort, and health food tastes horrible. These good reasons are also called excuses.



It is always worth it to keep trying, because your body must have exercise to thrive.

Here is my expert fitness advice on how to get back in the saddle:



Get over it. Forgive yourself. Give yourself a second or a 50th chance and get back in the game. You’ll never get results by holding a grudge against yourself and giving up too early.

Take it slow. You are better off setting small goals to let your body adapt. Everything is psychological, so tweaking your own self-esteem by achieving many small goals may help you.

Avoid the plethora of ridiculous, extreme, “Zero to Hero” fitness plans. If you are having a tough time being consistent, why would you put yourself through the stress and torture of pushing your weak body through a fitness crash-course? Programs like “Video games to half marathons” get one lucky torture survivor in shape for a couple of months and many others injured and frustrated.

Most people are failing at fitness due to health issues. Most health issues are caused by a lack of fitness. You must work at these together as they are directly related. You can’t get healthy without fitness. That’s why health care is exponentially more expensive than fitness, which technically you can achieve for free. That’s also why fitness is most likely not covered by your provider.

Get help. Everyone needs help. Nobody has done anything great without the help of others. Drop the “lone-wolf” fantasy and get a little help from your friends or better yet, from a friend who knows about human physiology.

Educate yourself about exercise a little more. Most fear goes away with knowledge and understanding. The more that you know about exercise and the physiology of the human body, the easier it is to get better results with less effort. If we knew as much about fitness as we did fantasy football or the Kardashians, we’d be very healthy as a nation.

Stop doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

Stop making excuses. The fitness-snobs are right about this one. Find areas in your life where you can execute discipline and self-control to prove to yourself that you have these attributes. Next, apply discipline and self-control to things that you struggle with such as fitness.

You will fail again. So what? Enjoy your hiatus and get back into it soon.

Think outside the box. You can get fit by many different means. There are a few bendy fitness rules that we should adhere to, but never let any fitness know-it-all tell you that you’ll never be fit if you don’t do this or that because they really have no idea what works for you. Fitness is a personal science that you must develop over time to meet your individual needs. The key is to not fall off the wagon forever.

Steve Wells has over 25 years of experience in fitness and nutrition and is the co-owner of Midland Fitness. His blog “According to Steve” can be found at midland-fitness.com. “Where in the Health are We?,” Steve’s public speaking tour, puts him on the road to speak at your organization about various fitness and nutrition topics such as office ergonomics, stress management and real-world nutrition. To schedule a Where in the Health are We? event at your organization, call 970-945-4440.


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