Daily progress can show big results when it comes to achieving your goals. I want to take the time to talk about how small wins equal HUGE gains down the road when it comes to fitness, health, and nutrition. Find out what strategies works and daily progress can help you achieve the results to hit your goals.

One of the biggest reasons people quit a healthy habit is because they don’t see their progress fast enough. I am guilty of quiting a routine, because I get frustrated. I think what I’m doing isn’t actually working, but I can assure you…it is!

Think about the times you start working out again after a long break, and you’re so sore the next few days. That’s your body getting ready for some amazing results. You won’t see a physical change immediately, but you’ll start to feel it.

Every goal you create for yourself takes some sort of hard work and determination. If you are committed to the end result, you’ll stop at nothing to get there. I’m sure some of you will have set backs, and road blocks, but that’s just the beauty of achieving your goals. When you get there, success taste so good!

Small Wins is Key

Like I said earlier, people tend to quit healthy habits because it takes some time to get there. They don’t accumulate the daily progress, therefore their hard work results and goals diminish.

I’ve gone through this more times than I can count. I start a work out routine, hoping to lose some weight, and fall off within the week because I either get tired of going to the gym, or I get frustrated that I still look exactly the same.

I decided to change my mindset though. As a personal trainer and physical education teacher I already knew that results are not immediate, but I didn’t have the patience to keep going.

How?

Goal setting is a major factor in getting the results you want. If you commit to small goals in shorter periods of time, you will start to see your body transforming.

For instance, lets say your long term goal is to lose 40 pounds. You definitely are not going to achieve this the healthy way in 1 week. Not even 1 month!

Your body needs time and you need patience.

Instead, set a small goal that’s obtainable in order to feel successful. This could be something as simple as “I am going to lose 1 pound a week” or “I am going to track my calories I eat, and not exceed 1,600”. These are goals that you can accomplish, and once you see 1 pound lost or stay on track with your calorie counting, you will want to keep going.

It’s all about that strong mindset! Once you overcome your doubts and set backs you will be on the track to BIG RESULTS.

I love this article by Thomas Oppong titled: The Science of Marginal Gains. He as well goes into detail about how 100% progress is not achieved overtime.

Story Time

As many of you know, I started the keto diet mid December. The first week and a half was a nightmare, because I got the keto flu bad, but I stuck with it and now??? I am seeing THE BEST results.

Check out my 30 day experience on keto here!

The trick to keeping myself on track was that I was setting realistic goals for myself. During the first couple weeks, I was losing a pound a day. This was all water weight, but when I realized how quckly the scale was going down, I committed to a goal of 1 pound a day.

Then once my body started burning fat for energy, I was averaging 1-2 pounds lost a week. I built that into my short term goals and would only weigh myself on Sundays. And because this goal was so doable I was able to stay on track and lose a total of 20 pounds in just over a month (this includes the 10 pounds of water weight).

But I know that the slow pound droppage is actually the fat just melting off of me, which makes me EXTREMELY excited to keep up my hard work and efforts.

Since Then…

I have noticed my body getting smaller and more toned. I can see a huge difference in my face and waist the most. And those are the two areas I wasn’t confident in. No one wants a double chin…

I keep up with my weight loss by reconstructing my goals every Sunday afternoon. If I don’t hit a specific goal, I will build it into my next weeks goal. Meaning that if I was trying to lose two pounds last week to hit 140, but I weigh myself on Sunday and I am 141, I still try to lose two pounds the following week, but on Sunday, I should weigh 139 instead of 138.

This is to ensure that my weight loss is still at a healthy pace, and so I don’t get discouraged when I keep piling goals up and can’t reach them, because I am trying to make up for previous weeks goals. My daily progress, helped me reach these small goals with excellent results.

Organization is Key

A lot of the time, we tell ourselves, “I want to lose 20 pounds”, “I want to count calories” “I want to build muscle”, but we don’t ever follow through because we have so many thoughts and goals floating around in our heads that we just give up before we even start.

Being organized is a major factor in getting the results you want.

Start with your long term goal. What is it? Write it down.

Give yourself a timeline to reach that goal. Write it down.

Now start build short term goals, like I just talked about and write those down as well.

Okay so we have everything written down, but now what?

Well now you have to come up with an outline of how you are going to reach every single one of these goals.

What Do I DO?

For me, it’s commiting to a really high step count on my Fitbit. Since I am a PE teacher, there is no excuse to have less than 12,000 steps in my workday. This includes my active minutes too. Active minutes on your Fitbit is when your heart rate exceeds a specific zone, and stays there for longer than ten minutes. I always try to have at least 40 active minutes Monday-Friday while at work.

Another part of my outline is meal prepping. I love cooking so this part is easy for me, but for those of you that hate cooking and your goal is to eat healthier, meal prepping is a must!

Look up some healthy recepies, make extra, and pack them up into containers for the next few days. Whatever diet you may be on, your meal prepping should be tailored around those goals.

Since I meal prep all keto food, I make sure I have enough food to eat or snack on for at least three days. This ensures I have go to food to eliminate the possibility of cheating. It’s the absolute worst feeling when you’ve been working so hard, but you’re at work starving, and all you are able to eat is some vending machine chips. Thankfully, I haven’t experienced that in the last month and a half. But I can definitely say I’ve done this before.

I make sure I have three days of food, but usually will prep for the week with foods that have a longer expiration date.

If you have decent organization skills, and can sort out your goals on paper, or in an online database, I promise you will be able to reach your goals faster.

Now What?

Well….START NOW!

Remember, slow and steady wins the race. Having a slimmer waist, or bigger muscles does not happen overnight. Hard work is a must, but if you stick to your organization tricks, remain on track with your small short term goals, those end goals will happen.

And you’re way of living will improve drastically.

For more resources to keep you accountable, grab my Yearly Weight Loss Planner here!