The Infonian

Personal trainers and gym owners across the country have BIG smiles on their faces right now. Why? Because they know they’re about to get flooded with average folk making New Year’s resolutions to drop that extra 20 pounds and finally get fit. And they ALSO know that the vast majority of these new sign-ups will show up for about a month and then disappear forever. Or at least until next year. Now don’t get me wrong. I love goal-setting (when it works) and I like the idea of making plans to get in shape for the new year if it gives you a boost of energy and motivation. So how can we set fitness goals for the year and actually stick to them? And ACCOMPLISH them?

Here are 5 things successful goal-setters do that quitters don’t do:

1. Keep your goals PRIVATE. The last thing you want is for the wrong person to find out that you want to improve your diet or take a few inches off your waistline. Because he or she will try to bring you down with negativity and get in the way of you developing new and good habits. Don’t even give them the chance.

2. Figure out WHY you want to accomplish your goal. If you want to drop 20 extra pounds…think about why. And don’t think this is obvious stuff either. What you need to know is what personally motivates you and gets you emotionally involved. Is it because you want to look better? Have more energy? Attract a new mate? Re-attract an old one? Figure it out.

3. Use this reason to keep you going when things get rough: Whenever you feel like giving up or taking it easy after a couple months have gone by and your goals lose their luster, remember your reason for making the resolution in the first place. Focus on that and your fire will reignite.

4. Get around likeminded people. This means avoiding your friends who overeat if you want to clean up your diet. And getting around active people if you want to exercise more. Like it or not, it’s a lot harder to accomplish something alone.

5. If you stumble a bit, shrug it off. Don’t worry if you fall back into your old habits for a week. If you miss a couple of workout sessions, don’t waste time feeling bad. Just get started again and treat it as a learning experience. If you eat poorly for a week or two, pouting won’t do any good. Just laugh it off and get started again.

Author: Nate Rifkin

Why build a home gym and not just go to a health club?

Building a home gym might not be as hard as you thought. Fitness equipment and home gyms are not bulky and room filling as they once were. Sure you can purchase a gigantic home gym if you want to but then you spend a lot of money and probably wont use it as much. People tend to look at something large and associate that with a lot of work and loose interest. Now days you can by weight benches, dumbbells, and exercise balls and do a variety of different routines. A lot of fitness equipment folds up or lays down flat for easy storage. Some people say “ I need a trainer to show me how.” well if your one of those people then you should have a TV and DVD player and there are many fitness trainers out there that have their own DVD’s to show you how.

You might ask why build a home gym? Well there are several answers to that question. What if you drive to the health club, now days gas is double if not triple the price, depending on where you live. Lets say you drive 5 miles to get to health club and gas is $3.70 a gallon and your car gets 28 miles to gallon. To go there and get back is 10 miles. That’s almost 2 gallons of gas for a 5 days a week routine. That’s $7.40 a week on gas and $380.00 a year. Then you factor in memberships. Now each club is different but most charge a monthly membership. Usually around $40.00 a month depending on what you want. Well at that price it is around $480.00 a year. Just those two factors alone cost around $860.00 a year. If you go for a couple years you just spent $1720.00. Now don’t forget that that is just single person, families are even more.

People with families should really think about building a home gym or fitness room in your house. Think of the benefit of your children seeing and learning how to stay fit right along with you. Now it has become a whole family routine. There was an article in the local paper that said by the year 2014 over 80% of America will be obese. That is a scary thought. Our children need to learn how to stay fit and you can’t always do that in a health club sometimes it has to be under our own roof.

Another reason is time probably the most important reason of all. Now days, time is everything there just isn’t enough. If you could do your exercise routine before work or after work at home without spending the time to drive there, would it not be worth it. For mothers especially it would be worth it. Imagine doing your exercises at anytime during the day at the drop of a hat. That is always a problem at the health club, because how many times have you had to wait in line just to do a little cardio or get on a weight bench. A home gym provides you the time you need to get your workout done and not wasting your cardio time.

I am 40 years old and the last 2 years of my life have been incredible. I have lost 40 pounds the right way. I know it is the right way because it took hard work and it has stayed off and still coming off. I used diet programs and exercise programs. I also have a line of fitness equipment. I created my site because I wanted to help others do what I have done and you definitely don’t need to spend a lot of money doing it.