Some of the most common resolutions every new year center around fitness. I don't know if there's a single person in the world who doesn't want to look and feel better. If there is, I'd love to meet them and understand why!
Now, whether you want to lose body fat, gain muscle, be healthier, or do a combination of these things ... Your fitness journey starts with a goal. After that comes your commitment to the necessary actions to reach your goals.
Unfortunately, not many people have the belief and discipline to go out and reach their fitness goals. Sometimes it takes some extra accountability to stay committed.
This is where a fitness challenge or transformation challenge can help. These challenges are designed to do three things in particular...
1. A fitness challenge has a set time frame. This is more palatable to get people to commit to. Rather than thinking about how long the overall journey will take, you only have to commit for a handful of weeks.
2. When people stick with the fitness challenge, they can see great results. It shows you what you’re capable of when you work hard and stay consistent. Plus, this all takes place in a relatively short amount of time!
3. A fitness challenge can help you build a routine and healthy habits while having some fun. That way you can see what works for you, and then continue with the habits.
So, what makes a fitness challenge a good idea? Keep reading to learn more and find out whether a fitness challenge makes sense for you or not.
The Importance of Fitness Challenges
On average, it takes about 66 days to build a habit and make it automatic (1). An 8-week challenge is 10 days short of that.
Entering a fitness challenge can be a great way to motivate yourself, and get you through most of the habit-forming stage. The sad truth is, most people give up on themselves before they get that far. At least, when doing it all on their own.
Sometimes it takes the allure of a prize to feel like you have more skin in the game. It brings out the competitive nature in us all, and can be very motivating.
For others, it’s just about being a part of something with other people doing the same thing. This social accountability can definitely be helpful for a lot of us.
The point of any fitness challenge is to get results, yes, but you can also use it as a tool to get you started. The key is in learning what to focus on and finding ways to make it work for you.
The more consistent you are with the changes you make, the more likely you are to create a lasting habit. In addition to making it easier to form healthy habits, a transformation challenge can really kick your progress into high gear.
Some challenges leave it all up to you to get results, while others help you along the way. I recommend choosing the latter because most people do much better with coaching.
If you have someone to teach you how to get results, you’re more likely to get them. It’s like someone giving you the right tools, and teaching you how to use them properly.
You may not need the help forever, but we all need it at times. I do, and I’ve been coaching people for years and years.
Having another person there for support can keep us on track when life gets crazy. We all fall off track a times, and it helps to have someone there to offer encouragement.
How to Stay On Track in a Fitness Challenge
When it comes to staying on track in a fitness challenge, it's all about choosing the right diet and workout plan.
Sure, we hear a lot on social media about the diet we should follow. However, this creates the false perception that there is a specific diet that is best. Trust me, there isn't.
The key is choosing a nutrition plan that YOU can stick with.
Let’s say you’re trying to lose weight. In order to do this, you must eat less calories than you burn.
If you burn 3000 calories per day, you must eat less than that. If you follow a low carb diet and eat 2500 calories a day, you’ll lose weight.
If you do the opposite and eat lots of carbs, but still only eat 2500 calories, you’ll lose the same amount of weight. If you eat a balanced diet at 2500 calories, you’ll lose the same amount of weight.
The key is choosing a diet that you will enjoy enough to stick to. It’s the people that stick to their plan that continue to see results long term.
There are strategies that can help everyone though. For instance, keeping your protein intake high can be beneficial for any fitness goal.
Protein can help you maintain and build more muscle, and helps with fat loss too (2). So, while there is no “best diet," there are strategies that can help you see better results.
The same goes for your workout plan. Choose a workout plan you can stick to.
If you don’t like running, maybe don’t try a plan with tons of cardio involved. If you despise the type of workout you’re choosing, you’re not likely to stick to it.
There is one type of training that will help any fitness goal, though, and that’s resistance training. Resistance training is extremely necessary if muscle growth is your goal.
It’s also extremely effective for those looking to lose body fat (3).
So, while you should choose a plan that you can stick to, resistance training should be part of it. It will help you maximize the effectiveness of your plan to earn amazing results!
Join Our Fitness Challenges
I’ve been a personal trainer at multiple gyms. I’ve seen a lot of different fitness challenges, and I’ve coached thousands of people through them.
My favorite one, and the one I’ve seen the most people get results in, is our fitness challenge at 1st Phorm: The Transformation Challenge. There’s something different about it that wasn’t available in the other ones I’ve done.
The difference is all in the 1st Phorm App. The app itself has a lot of features like food tracking software, workout programs, and educational live streams.
But the real game changer is getting access to your own advisor in the app. Yes, I'm talking about a real human you can connect with! That’s what sets it apart from all the others out there.
Your advisor is there to teach you, and they coach you every step of the way. They see what food you track, the workouts you log, and any changes in your progress.
The best part of it all, though, is the fact that you can message back and forth with them in the app. When you have a question, they’re there to answer it. When you’re falling off track, they’ll message you and help guide you.
It's like having a personal trainer in your pocket. In fact, our advisors are all NASM certified personal trainers and nutrition coaches. Some are registered dietitians too!
Whether it’s during a transformation challenge or not, they’re there for you. They’ll help you year round until you reach your goal.
We don’t only want to encourage people to work hard for 8 weeks, and then stop. We want to truly help you get long term results.
So, for every transformation challenge we run, we have multiple ways of winning $25,000. It isn’t just about losing weight either. It could be for muscle growth, weight loss, or a combination of both!
One winner is whoever gets the best results during the 8-week challenge. We also have a lifestyle winner each challenge.
A lifestyle challenge winner is from anyone who got incredible results in longer than 8 weeks. It can take some of these people 9 weeks, or 2 years to earn their results. It doesn’t matter.
A lot of people have a long road ahead of them, and can’t get all the results they want in 8 weeks. We understand that, and that’s why we award those with the best lifestyle transformation.
It encourages everyone to keep trying, and not give up on themselves after just 8 weeks. The results people have been able to earn have been nothing short of incredible!
For those of you who don’t like doing the work alone, we have a partner division too. The best results between 2 partners also gets a cash prize!
We give you every tool you need, and every possible chance to be a winner.
The crazy thing is, everyone who's won so far never thought they'd get chosen. So, what makes you think you can't win? The next winner could certainly be you!
Don’t Wait to Start
I know it can seem daunting to think about. Change can be scary, but it can also be very rewarding.
If you don’t like what you see in the mirror, it will take showing up for yourself to change that. You’ll have to stare that fear in the eyes and take it head-on.
Let's take how bulls and cows react during a storm as an example of why it's important. Think of the storm as the hard work it takes to reach your goal.
Cows run away from the storm moving toward them. They try to delay the fear as long as possible. This maximizes the time they stay in the storm, and it takes longer to pass.
Bulls run toward the storm that’s coming at them. It gives a sense of confidence facing adversity head on.
They end up running through the storm, and it passes them much more quickly.
So, if you take the approach of the cow, you’ll procrastinate and put your goals off as long as possible. You may fight yourself on every change you try to make.
This can cause it to take you YEARS to actually buckle down and get to work.
Your other option is taking the approach of the bull. Face the fear of change head on, and start working now.
When you actually commit to yourself, and don’t give up, you’ll be surprised what you’re capable of. That’s what we want to help you do.
We want to give you every tool you need, and then teach you how to use them. Whether you’re in the 1st Phorm App for a single challenge, or for the rest of your life, we want you to know how to earn results!
You don’t have to get started when a challenge starts either. Like I said, we have lifestyle winners that take longer than 8 weeks every time.
So, what are you waiting for? Time is going to pass anyway, so you may as well get something out of the time you have in front of you now.
Give us a shot to help you, and I promise you won’t be disappointed. We’ll meet you halfway every step of the way!
Download the 1st Phorm App today and get started!
If you have any questions about it before you get started, let us know. We’re more than happy to tell you all about it!
We have a full team of NASM Certified Personal Trainers and Nutrition Coaches right here in St. Louis, Missouri. Just give us a call at 1-800-409-9732 or send us an email at CustomerService@1stPhorm.com any day from 6 AM to 10 PM Central.
References:
(1) Arlinghaus KR, Johnston CA. The Importance of Creating Habits and Routine. Am J Lifestyle Med. 2018 Dec 29;13(2):142-144. doi: 10.1177/1559827618818044. PMID: 30800018; PMCID: PMC6378489.
(2) Antonio J, Candow DG, Forbes SC, Ormsbee MJ, Saracino PG, Roberts J. Effects of Dietary Protein on Body Composition in Exercising Individuals. Nutrients. 2020 Jun 25;12(6):1890. doi: 10.3390/nu12061890. PMID: 32630466; PMCID: PMC7353221.
(3) Lopez P, Taaffe DR, Galvão DA, Newton RU, Nonemacher ER, Wendt VM, Bassanesi RN, Turella DJP, Rech A. Resistance training effectiveness on body composition and body weight outcomes in individuals with overweight and obesity across the lifespan: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Obes Rev. 2022 May;23(5):e13428. doi: 10.1111/obr.13428. Epub 2022 Feb 21. PMID: 35191588; PMCID: PMC9285060.
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