How to avoid “needing to get back on track”

_{We have all been there. We have all had that thought of:}

“ I need to get my shit together”

“ Tomorrow ill make sure I do it”

“ Monday ill start eating better”

That list can go on and on for all the various saying you have probably said to yourself before to get yourself back on track

I am going, to be honest, I hate when I hear people say “I need to get back on track”. It's just a huge pre-built excuse for people to keep saying things and not actually doing something.

Look I get it work, life school, family, vacations … whatever it is life happens. I am not here to say that you don't have valid reasons for not exercising or not eating to your nutrition plan. This isn't an article on discipline or being strict. This is about helping you avoid the feeling of falling off track.

You probably “ fell off track” because you put too much pressure on yourself to be perfect. You might've missed the gym for 2 days because of a work project or because your kids were sick. You still have 363 days left in the year to cover for it. Even if you miss another 10 days you still have 96% of your year to hit your goals. To be even more conservative, let's say you have a total of 37 days per year that you can't do something productive to your goals. You still have 90% of your year left. That's so much time.

Instead of putting pressure to make up for lost time or thinking you will lose progress, you just need to go get back into your routine.

From a fitness standpoint, this just means going back to the gym. You shouldn't push yourself too hard or be redlining in the gym. Just go, move around, and break a sweat. After 2-3 days of that, you can get back into your normal training intensity. Jumping right back into training after days or weeks off can lead to injury or hurt expectations. Go into the day knowing it won't be your best.

Do you know if you’re eating enough protein?

Do you know the foods that will get you to your goal?

Well lucky for YOU I just finished up the first version of my “Protein Per Day “calculator. Inside this document you can get the exact amount of protein you will need for your goals, how to split that up between meals, how to time your protein for the best training & a list of food options to where you can plan it all out.

Sounds expensive doesn’t it? Since you’re getting this email you get full access for FREE. All you need to do is click the button below and make yourself a copy.

Now back to learning how to stay on track

From a nutrition standpoint. Nutrition is a lifelong journey, it's not something that you can really do for 30-90 days and then call it quits. So taking off a few days here and there isn't the worst thing. I tell all my clients i want them to be successful 80% of the time. This builds in for days where they can't hit their goals, days where they want to go HAM on some snacks or days where they just went over their goals. It removes the guilt of needing to be perfect. If you build flexibility into your nutrition plans from the start you'll find it much easier to get right back to it after a long break. Those 3-21 days of your time off can be looked at as a de-load period. Just like training, we need to take diet breaks as well.

If you are someone who has taken years off from fitness and/or nutrition and you’re looking to start back up. I suggest you start small. Pick 3 days a week you want to train. Cut your coffee creamer usage in half. Keep it really easy for yourself and find ways to stack easy wins.

If you are someone like me who struggles to create a new habit, make it impossible to fail. Things like:

• Put your gym bag in your car or by the door so you have to look at it on your way out.

• Leaving sticky notes around your house with reminders of what you need to do

• Creating a checklist of things to do the night before.

  • Crossing off an item feels very monumental

  • I love this because it lets you wake up and know immediately what you need to do for the day.

• Use this habit tracker I have been using for some time now.

Relevant links

Content of the week

Dont forget to call your mom

-Mike

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