Be a new you in 12 weeks!
So you have decided the time is right…
• You are going to get fit and healthy.
• Have the body of your dreams.
• Live like you have always dreamt you would.
• And you are going to do it all in the next 6, 12, 13 weeks?
Now, time for a reality check. It took you how many years to get to where you are today? And you are expecting to right all those years of wrongs in the next two or three months?
It took me around 10 years to figure most of it out. No, I still don’t know it all, but I am learning more every day. I have completed more challenges over the years than I care to remember. I have even won one and was featured in the Australian Ironman magazine. But the true change occurred and I found the new me when I transitioned my thoughts and goals from ones based on aesthetics to goals based on performance.
I used to look in the mirror and then work out what I wanted to change and then write my program based on what muscles weren’t up to scratch. Looking in the mirror time and time again made me view myself in a rather dim light: I was always picking up imperfections. But when it all boiled down to it, I would look better each time, but I would not necessarily be performing better…
I would be eating too much sugar; I would be looking for ways to cut the last bit of fat – not the healthiest of options. And, on top of that, I was never happy.
I no longer work in competition blocks. I work in years, then back to quarters and then to months. What do I want to achieve by month’s end? How heavy will my deadlift be by the end of the first quarter? How much better will I be in a year than I am today?
And that is where the paradigm shift occurred. I started competing with me. You see, the biggest flaw in every challenge out there is that others are judging you on your appearance relative to someone else or some unobtainable ideal.
This, my dear readers is not at all healthy from a mental health viewpoint. When we constantly compare ourselves to others in appearance we are always looking over our shoulder at what others are doing when realistically, all that matters is that you are better than you were yesterday.
About the Author
Jim Ridley is Armidale’s accomplished personal trainer. Having lost over 25 kilos and becoming a PT, Jim knows where you are coming from. He is the owner of Gym Ridz Personal Training and CrossFit Armidale, 2012 Winners of the Health, Beauty and Wellbeing section in the Armidale Chamber of Commerce Business Awards, and the only private training studio in Armidale and Armidale’s only CrossFit gym. He is also an avid (if not tragic) St George Illawarra Dragons fan.