It’s January 2nd and I hope you are ready to get bombarded with just about every diet, exercise and fitness special out on the market. The gyms are hungry vultures for your business and so is everyone else in this industry (did I just call myself a hungry vulture?)

Here’s why:

Do you know what the top two resolutions are each year?

Lose Weight and Get out of Debt

Now before I go much further I do want to commend all of you who really put yourselves out there and posted your resolutions on The Diet Solution blog. They were all truly motivating and inspired me to tweak some of my own goals a bit. (If you didn’t get a chance to see them, you can read them here: http://thedietsolution-program.com/blog/youll-never-guess-my-new-years-resolution/)

Ok, now back to the hungry vultures, uhh, I mean health and fitness professionals.

Here is my advice on how to choose the best fitness program for yourself this year (and no I am not going to give you my advice on how to pick the best nutrition program because you already know what my answer is).

1. Before looking into any program, ask yourself where you enjoy exercising. Is it in your home? Is it at a gym? Is it outdoors? Is it with friends? You really must answer this question first because if you sign yourself up for the new gym in town and you actually would much rather work out at home, then you just may never make it there. Be honest with yourself about what you would enjoy the most and what would fit into your schedule the best.

2. Pick one fitness program and follow it for 6-8 weeks. Notice that I didn’t say buy every program on the market and drive yourself bananas reading all the information. No, choose one good one, follow it and then assess your progress after 6 weeks. If you’re really enjoying it, stick with that one. If you’re ready for a change, look into a new one.

I personally have been alternating between Mike Geary’s Truth About Abs and Vince Delmonte’s Your Six Pack Quest for Abs every 6 weeks. I’ve gotten great results with both and they have helped to keep my workouts new and interesting every few weeks. I do use some of Craig Ballantyne’s body weight workouts when I don’t have equipment handy. I’ve decided to follow Craig’s Program Turbulence Training for the first 6 weeks of 2009 like I did 2 years ago when I first purchased his program. I got great results then and I’m sure I will this time as well. My favorite part about Craig’s and Mike’s is the limited amount of cardio. I’m not much of a cardio fan and I love being able to stay lean year round without having to do too much of it.

3. Be consistent. The best part about following an exact program is that I know exactly what I am supposed to do on exactly which days. You can’t just walk into your workout and do “some of these” and then “some of those”. You’ve got to have a plan (much like life). I highly suggest you do find one program and stick with it consistently.

If you’ve got your own favorite program that I haven’t mentioned, please share it with the rest of us here on my blog. I would love to hear your experience with any great fitness program and hopefully I will add it to my own list of favorites as well.

Happy New Year!

In health and happiness,

Isabel De Los Rios
www.TheDietSolutionProgram.com

Filed under:
Fitness, Health, Weight Loss by Isabel