Fit & Healthy Buffalo- Fitness Success After 40

  There’s nothing quite as inspiring as a truly jaw-dropping before and after picture. I’m talking about a 50+ pound weight loss where they look like an entirely new person. It’s striking how much younger people look when the extra fat comes off. An attractive, happy, energetic person was inside of them all along. Many popular magazines showcase transformation success stories like this at the beginning of a new year. Flip through the pages of before and after photos and it’s hard not to feel inspired to make healthy changes in your own life. It’s also interesting to read how each person managed to lose all the weight. What was their exercise routine? What diet plan did they follow? The truth is that there are many routines and plans that bring success. The key is to choose your plan and stick with it. Of course, this is where things get tricky, during the stick with it period. This is when life tempts you to lose your focus and get lazy. This is when even the best

  Do you have a specific fitness goal that you are hoping to achieve? This goal could be a number on the scale, or a clothing size. Or maybe you are hoping to wear a certain cut or style of clothes like strappy tank tops, shorts, or a bathing suit. While having this goal is great, it will NOT guarantee success. You knew that, though, because this isn’t the first time that you’ve had a fitness goal. A goal that you didn’t meet. In fact, you probably know dozens of other people who also have struggled to meet their fitness goals. Here’s the typical scenario: you get all pumped up to lose weight and get into shape by starting out completely gung-ho. Your enthusiasm lasts about two weeks, before old habits and routine slide back into place, cutting your results off before reaching your goal. Then your goal begins to fade from your mind, and life goes on. The problem, my friend, was your initial focus on the result rather than a sustained focus on the process. Let me break

  Have you ever noticed how two people can do the exact same fitness routine for a period of time and one will have breathtaking results while the other looks the same as when they started? Why is that? It’s frustrating when you are the person going through a fitness routine without seeing dramatic results. Might make you look for a reason outside of yourself to blame, such as genetics. In reality, the thing holding you back is something that you have complete control over: it’s the intensity with which you exercise. Intensity is something that’s difficult for the outside observer to measure but is felt within your body as you go through the motions of an exercise. It’s how hard you push yourself to go as heavy and as quickly as possible. It’s picking up a weight that feels hard to handle. It’s putting a boost behind each stride as you run. It’s resisting the urge to simply go through the motions. It’s outdoing your efforts from last time. Now

  According to popular statistics, only 8% of New Year’s Resolutions are successfully kept. This means that 92% of us that are brave enough to set out for self-improvement will fail. Those aren’t very good odds. Thankfully there is science that explains this curious “Snap-Back Effect” and offers us tools to make the effect work in our favor. Snap-Back Effect:   A term coined by Dr. Maxwell Maltz, the author of Psycho-Cybernetics to describe the rampant self-sabotage of personal improvement goals. Maltz noted that you can stretch a rubber band only to a certain length and hold it only for a certain time until you get weak or get distracted and the rubber band will then snap back to its true shape. This is essentially what happens when you attempt to achieve a new level of self-improvement. Sooner or later you sabotage yourself and get back to your normal level of achievement. What sort of person do you believe yourself to be? This mental image of yourself is your self-image. All of your

Ready to make some serious progress on your goals in 2023? Well, I’ve got an exercise that’ll help in a BIG way. Remember this quote from Nelson Mandela:  “I either win or I learn” … because it’ll help set the tone for what you’re about to do. Ready? Let’s get into it! FIRST: LOOK BACK Think back to this time last year and ask yourself: What goals did you set for this year? Did you make the progress you wanted to make? What helped you? What got in your way? How different is your life now vs. then? SECOND: LOOK FORWARD Imagine yourself a year from now. What do you want to accomplish by Dec. 31, 2023? WHY does it matter to you? How will it make things different in your day-to-day life? THIRD: LOOK AT TODAY Once you’ve reflected on these questions, it’s time to apply your insights to help make your goals a REALITY in 2023. What do you need to learn? What do you need to do differently? How can you jump the hurdles that are su

  Do you follow fitness stars on social media? Their perfect, chiseled images popping up in your newsfeed to give you just the right amount of motivation to get you into the gym…or does it? Striving for perfection doesn’t always work. Quite frankly, perfection is unattainable, and will always leave you falling short and feeling bad about yourself. Instead I like to remind myself of this quote… ‘Strive for progress, not perfection.’ -Unknown Progress isn’t as exciting as perfection, but it is attainable. And progress builds upon more progress as you climb your way towards the accomplishment of real goals. And yet…the gap between your current body and the body you want gapes wide and deep. Any time that you want progress and improvement in your life it requires crossing over from one way of doing things to a new way. But how do you make it across? How do you go from 50 pounds overweight to a healthy BMI? How do you go from a junk food lover to a health food lover? How do you go from a sn