How does accountability affect fitness?

Think about goals. SMART goals, not ideas but specific targets. Turn your ideas into ‘goals’

This allows you to set specific targets and gives you something to work towards. Meaning you’re much more likely to be accountable for your actions because you will understand the responsibility lies purely with yourself.

If you’re wanting to lose weight for example you will need to take responsibility for what you eat and how often you eat. The means you will need to hold yourself accountable for meal planning and all the other things that come with eating a healthy diet day in and day out.

If you want to build muscle. You can go to the gym, get a personal trainer but holding yourself accountable will be what actually gets you the results.

You’re not going to make amazing changes having a one session a week PT but holding yourself responsible to form the changes you want to achieve will be what gets you to the gym between your PT sessions and will be what makes you work that little bit harder.

Do Personal Trainers hold you accountable?

Well as a personal Trainer I definitely hold my clients accountable. I provide each client with a workout log book because I feel this is a great way for clients to take ownership over their workouts. This also gives them the perfect tool to workout with between PT sessions which I encourage. I also ensure they schedule in for the following week and unless its impossible due to work etc I encourage clients to have the same day/time each week ‘their slot’ to support them with fitting fitness into their weekly routine.

With regards to effort. I can deliver the programme and advise on the weight to be lifted from my observation during the sets I can suggest whether this should be increased or reduced, I will teach the correct technique and ensure a client knows which muscle is being worked so to help the mind to muscle connection. I will also adapt the programme for progressive training.

However the client is accountable for the amount of effort they put into their workouts and training.

As a personal trainer I also encourage regular body composition tests to measure the progress. (fat loss, muscle mass increase etc)

What are the benefits of being accountable in fitness?

Once you have a clear understanding of what is needed to get the job done. Naturally we start to put things in place in order to achieve.

So this could be anything that makes life easier. For example if you’re wanting to lose weight you know the back bone of this, is eating well balanced home cooked meals. So the accountability lies with ensuring the shopping is done weekly for the ingredients, being unorganised will mean on a busy day and one that you may feel totally shattered from, will leave you reaching for the take away menu if the foda isn’t in the fridge.

If you’re wanting to improve your muscle mass planning in regular gym sessions will mean adequate strength training is achieved. Planned sessions will be worked around and become routine. Relying on attending the gym when you get chance will be failure waiting to happen, as the novelty wears off you’ll find you wont have time, or you’re too tired. A planned gym session will be something your mind accepts as the regular  e.g ‘Tuesday & Thursday’ activity therefore you won't go into automatic wind down as you finish work or get home from the school run.

Planning is being accountable to achieve.

How do you create accountability for fitness?

Plan; this is for me the most important advice I can give. Plan in your sessions, plan your meals.

Reward yourself; be proud of yourself and what you achieve for reaching short term goals. Remember short term goals are your steps towards your long term goal, they are important and should be treated as such. For example you want to lose 3 stone. When you lose 1 stone you reward yourself with a new fitness outfit. When you lose 2 stone you buy the new trainers. When you’ve reached 3 stone loss, you treat yourself to a pamper weekend. These are examples obviously but you get the point.

Track; your progress and do not, and I repeat do not! give up if you have a bad week. If you dropped your phone on the floor and the screen got scratched you wouldn’t then take a hammer and smash it to bits so do not destroy your progress the same way. If you get to Wednesday and for whatever reason things haven’t gone to plan and you're not likely to get it on track then just write the week off and get back on track the following week. If you have had 10 weeks of keeping on track then week 11 goes tits up, get back on track in week 12 because when you get to week 24, week 11 of going tits up would have made absolutely no difference. So get a diary/notepad and track what you do, note what worked and also feelings.

‘’Went to the gym today, did full body workout was tired before I went, but left feeling amazing.’’

Trust me reading that in week 11 of it going tits up, will get you back on track!!

Photos/Videos; honestly can't stress this enough. You will not notice your progress it happens so slowly that you really wont see a difference for a good few months. But I will guarantee there will be changes. Every 6 weeks get an underwear/body shot and compare it to the previous photo and your first day photo. You will see a difference. This itself is a massive confidence and motivation boost.

Do you need someone else to hold you accountable for fitness?

Well no not really. Personal trainers are great for this. I often question clients on their food intake, or sessions. It doesn’t matter to me personally what the answer is, but just asking the question can sometimes point out the obvious to a client. Them explaining they ‘didn’t have time’ for whatever is sometimes enough for them to realise they probably did.

Be honest with yourself and not make silly excuses. No blaming, No excuses and no denial.

‘Oh I had to get a take away because my neighbours cat got ran over’ (eye roll!) No!! Life, your life is all about choices. If you’re serious about making a change you wont make excuses or condone what didn’t get done. Change your mindset you want the change you’re the only one that can make it happen. If you excuse something this week, the likelihood is, you’ll excuse maybe two things the following week and before you know it you’ll be back to square 1 with a bag of excuses.

How to be accountable for fitness

Own it and take responsibility. Let go of magical thinking and be realistic of where you are now and what you need to do to achieve your goals. Stop waiting and hoping for a miracle! Nothings going to change unless you change it.

Don’t allow yourself to be overwhelmed with too much info, don’t try and achieve everything at once.

Remove confusion or incompetence. Pick one goal then research what you need to do to achieve. With google at your finger tips no one has the excuse of ‘they don’t know how’

Implement solutions to solve your problems. And stick to them!!