HOW TO GET IN SHAPE IN JANUARY - A WEEK BY WEEK GUIDE
Week 1 - GET PREPARED
This first week is all about preparation. Get yourself a gym membership, take advantage of the sales and stock up on some brand new gym clothes and gadgets. Also, if you are thinking about getting a trainer to help you get started you better get looking ASAP. The good ones will get booked up quick in January and you don’t want to settle for second best in this department. The other big one is food; get the fridge stocked up with lots of healthy foods and get rid of those last few bits of Christmas junk.
Week 2 - GET STARTED
This is a big week. You’re going to be aching by the end of it after your first full week’s worth of regimented exercise and eating well. But this week is all about setting the pace. Be sure to record all your gym-based activity so you have a baseline of what you have done. This will be crucial for next week and is a great habit to adopt going forward.
WEEK 3 - CONSISTENCY AND PROGRESS
So anyone can nail the first week of a new health and fitness regime, but can you keep the pace consistently and actually improve on that pace as you go along. This is the first chance to do it. Take last week’s baseline numbers and beat them. Be it by one rep, one kilo, one minute, whatever it is. Those tiny little improvements will add up over time if you can keep yourself within this kind of mind-set.
WEEK 4 - GET SOME SKIN IN THE GAME
The crossover between January and February is often when it’s easy to fall off; don’t let this be you. One of the most powerful things you can do in this week is put some skin in the game by scheduling something tangible that will keep you accountable. Maybe a luxury holiday, maybe a half marathon or a Tough Mudder event; anything that is going to help keep motivated and give you a big reason to stay on track. If it can fall between April and May that’s ideal. That gives you a nice solid time frame of 8-12 weeks to get some awesome results!