New Year, New Pace.

With the holidays over, it's time to refocus your mind at least until Valentine's Day! That being said, you have about six good weeks in you to make the changes necessary to begin your new year goals. But now how many of you think you will last until March? April? Bikini season? The big wedding or birthday? It's awesome to set all of these goals, but the number one thing that can affect you for better or for worse, is the pace at which you apply yourself.

     Yes sure, it's important to hit it hard and get going in the new year, especially if you're feeling motivated to hit this stride running. So it's tough to want to discourage any forward progression when a person is saying to me "I'm going to do this 21 day exercise streak" or all this other cardio (which I have a moderately huge attitude about, but that's another conversation). I would never want to discourage anyone who wants to work out, period. But it really boils down to you finding a schedule you can stick with.

     If you begin with 21 days or a 6 day per week exercise program, it's great, sure. Or maybe you've signed up for a six week boot camp, or a ten DVD interval workout set, and you are so certain that this is the way to go. Maybe you've signed up for a marathon and this has encouraged you to get up with others and go for a run. Okay again I'm not going to say "no! Don't do that!" But if it is totally off-colored in relation to a realistic aspect of yourself that vehemently opposes to say, getting up in the morning or the act of running, you are setting yourself up for failure.

    Fitness is not weight loss. It's not health food. It's not bodybuilding. It's not boot camp.. It's not being a size two. And it's definitely not taking oogles of supplements and maybe drugs. Fitness is a mentality, an action, a promise, a discipline, a regimen, a routine, a creed, and sometimes a fanatical religion. Okay so try not to make it that, or jump into a group that offers that level of nonsense. Fitness is an entity, a beast of its own making...but even more than any of those things, it is a pace that you apply to something you hopefully enjoy performing with regularity and general vigor. It's not quite like work and yet it is via sweat and routine, but it needs to be enjoyable.

     So if you want your fitness to make the most of you, and actually use it to improve and enhance your life, you must find a pace that you can maintain for at least 8 months out of this year. Happy new year, and start really planning the pace that works for you.