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Fitness InformationExercise & Motivation, Part 4: Maintenance & Relapse
by:
Tanja Gardner
Copyright 2005 Tanja Gardner
WHAT ARE THE MAINTENANCE AND RELAPSE STAGES?
In the maintenance stage, you’ve been exercise on a regular basis
for long enough that it’s become a habit. You’ve created a routine that works for you, and (if you’re doing it right), you’ve started seeing the benefits you originally wanted in your life. There are still a few traps that can derail you, though. Once
this happens, and you find yourself no longer exercising, you’re in Prochaska’s ‘Relapse’ stage. Most ‘traps’ wish either involve a change in your life circumstances, a change in your goals, or a combination of some
– so if you’ve been exercise on a regular basis
for a piece and suddenly find motivating yourself difficult, ask yourself what’s changed.
CHANGES IN CIRCUMSTANCE
If your circumstances have altered, you’ll normally be well aware of what’s happened and how it’s affected your motivation. For example – you mightiness enjoy exercise in a gym, then take a abrupt drop in financial gain
that doesn’t allow you to support your gym membership. Your working hours mightiness change, devising your innovational exercise timeslot unavailable. Person you exercise with mightiness decide to stop, or you mightiness injure yourself somehow. All these things wish disrupt what was an effective routine, and if you don’t actively plan to activity about the disruption, it can sap your motivation to support exercising.
If this applies to you, imagine you were back in the Contemplation stage, and look at the motivation suggestions for this stage. Return your main goal for exercising. Is it still valid? If so, come through the suggestions for the Preparation stage. Your initial ‘how’ no longer works – so what inevitably to change? If you can no longer support the routine that used to work, what can you still do that’s convenient, gratifying and affordable? If you’ve unbroken
a fitness journal, go back through the entries you ready-made once
you were setting up your routine. What did you think of to try then (and didn’t end up using) that you could experiment with now?
CHANGES IN GOALS
If your circumstances haven’t changed, it’s likely your goals have. Possibly your initial goals aren’t relevant any longer? If this is the case, don’t beat yourself up simply about it – instead, ask yourself what you *do* want now. Possibly you started off ardent simply about training for a triathlon, but quickly found the required time and effort unbalanced your life. Possibly you began wanting to lose 20kg, then accomplished as you had to replace your entire wardrobe that you really preferred being curvy – now you simply want to feel healthy and energetic. Remember, it’s your life and no-one can tell you what your goals should be. It’s OK for goals to change – what’s not OK is to support grimly putt time and effort into thing
you don’t really want any more.
Remember there’s a difference between wanting to take a day off, and losing long term motivation. Part of any booming plan is allowing yourself occasional rest days. Taking one or two every week doesn’t mean you’ve affected into Relapse – in fact it’s necessary to avoid overtraining. It’s besides OK to vary your exercise intensity from week to week – alternate weeks of pushing yourself with weeks of coasting. This strategy (called ‘periodisation’ once
it’s done to a specific plan) is really far more effective for reaching fitness goals than pushing yourself as hard as you can every single workout. If you’re starting systematically
skip workouts though, you need to numbers out why and do thing
simply about it.
GETTING HELP WITH MOTIVATION
Finally, as we recommended for those in the Action stage, if it’s acquiring harder to stay actuated despite all of the above suggestions, think simply about working with a personal trainer. In fact, a trainer can help you manage your psychological feature
difficulties any stage of Prochaska’s model you’re at (or even as if you’re not quite sure wherever
you are right now!) If you’ve thought simply about hiring a trainer in the past, but the time has ne'er
been right, Optimum Life Ltd has an offer that mightiness convert you to finally do the investment in yourself, your health, and your happiness. If you e-mail us on mailto:optimumlife@xtra.co.nz during October, you’ll be able to sign up for a full Total Fitness Membership at a 25% discount - only $US30 per month (when you consider that most trainers charge between $50-100 per session, you can see why it’s such nice value!)
As you can see from this article series, the question of how to actuate yourself to exercise isn’t an easy one to answer (if it was, we’d all be exercise regularly, and there’d be no need for this article!). The better way to actuate yourself depends really more on wherever
in the stages of change you are at the moment with respect to exercise. Numbers out wherever
you are in the model, then try the relevant suggestions for acquiring yourself moving. If you have any questions, comments or feedback, please don’t hesitate to contact us – we’d love to hear from you. Otherwise, may every day bring you closer to your Optimum Life.
Just simply about the author:
This article © Tanja Gardner, Optimum Life Ltd. Please feel free to reprint it in whole, as long as this resource box remains intact.
Optimum Life Ltd (http://optimumlife.co.nz) provides balanced fitness and stress management services to clients worldwide. For details of how we can help you accomplish your optimum fitness on a budget, visit http://trainerforce.com/optimumlife
Fora copy of our free 'What is Optimum Fitness?' Report and Checklist, please send an e-mail to mailto:optimumlife@xtra.co.nz with 'Please send Fitness Checklist & Report' in the subject header
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