Another change of season is soon upon us. The kids are back at school and the summer holidays, barbecues and lazy days at the beach or in the garden are dwindling fast.
As we go into the first weeks of September, there’s still hope for a prolonged summer but for me, I’ve always felt that this is a time to get things done.
September can often signal a time of change, reorganisation and perhaps the start of something entirely new. It can also be an opportunity to get back into an old routine that’s gone a bit awry, as so often happens during the summer months.

When it comes to your fitness schedule, I believe you should consider it with the same depth of planning as any other important part of your life. When you want to do something enough you’ll spend time, money, energy and effort to make it happen. Take for example a theatre production you’d like to see or a destination you’ve always wanted to visit, where you have to commit to thetimes and dates when the performance is showing, or when your flight is scheduled to depart, and if you miss it – you miss it – so you don’t – you make sure it happens!

If you look at fitness in a similar way you are more likely to meet your fitness goals.
You may not be that enthused initially about the actual idea of getting sweaty or putting your body through an element of discomfort, or feeling embarrassed or self conscious about doing something new amongst strangers, but you do want the end results and that’s why scheduling in fitness is the best way to get what you want.
So book that class, get motivated with a friend and meet for a walk or sign yourself up for a Saturday morning park run and put it in your diary/calendar/smartphone and plan other things around that, rather than instead of, and you are more likely to do it.

Time frames are always good to work with too. For instance between the publication of this magazine edition and Christmas we have approximately 16 weeks or 4 months, whichever way you prefer to slice it but if your fitness goal is to lose weight, at a rate of 1 – 2 lbs weight loss per week (the recommended healthy rate) you could lose between 1 to 2 stones or between 6 to 12 kilos by Christmas morning. Wouldn’t that be a great present to yourself? All because you went to a Zumba class on Mondays at 7pm week in week out without fail and cut down on your chocolate treats for 4 months!

So now you’ve come to the end of reading this article, flick the pages to the classified section and call the number of that class you’ve been meaning to attend for the last 9 months and make it a date!

– This Article has been published in the September edition of Life Magazine – http://www.lifemagazines.co.uk