About Smart Start Fit
Yeah? Exercise: But you gotta do it everyday, that's the hard part. But it does get easier.
-Paraphrased from Bojack Horseman
Smart Start Fitness is designed to be a community to help people get started on their fitness journey. Our methodology is to avoid the temptation of trying to do everything at once. Slowly changing habits is the best way to make long term changes to your lifestyle that works for you. Smart Start Fitness does not have any specific methodology for any of our main areas of focus. What we want to do is help people try different things and find something that works for them. If you want to try to lose weight by becoming vegan, meal prepping, low carb, intermittent fasting ect. All of those are find ways of reducing the intake of calories and to find one that works for you. Failure just means you have found another way that doesn't work for you.
Same thing with exercise, we want to find a way that works for you. If you like to exercise in the morning, after work, in the evening. I like to run in the morning Monday Wednesday and Friday and lift weights Tuesday and Thursday in the evening great. If you haven't done any exercise in a while lets start with 30 minutes of walking three times a week. Then when we can do that we move up to 5 days a week or extend the time to 45 minutes the next week. We want to slowly get in the habit of exercising, what exercise you do is not nearly as important as making sure you are doing something!
Nutrition
Exercise
Mental Health
Exercise
Workouts designed for beginners to get into good habits!
It is important to start with good habits, unlearning bad habits later can be more difficult than learning the right way the first time! One of the best habits a person starting exercise can get into is to warm up before working out, working out and then stretching after. Our goal here is to get all of this done in 45 minutes, so you can hit the showers and be ready in an hour plus or minus depending on shower time and preparation before working out.
All exercises are designed with beginners in mind, there are no pullups, in fact the only thing we suggest as far as equipment is a mat of some sort if you are on a hard surface and a chair or something to use as a balancing aid. I recommend people start doing squats on a chair to make sure you don't fall backwards. A folding chair a bench anything will work!
The workouts are designed to be three times a week and will balance the work between all of your muscles. Please make sure to not just do the first exercise multiple times, you will be working some muscles and not others. I would suggest starting with these exercises, three times a week, it will get your heart rate up. If you want to go for extra credit mix in a walk or a jog on off days. Check out the video section and you will see 12 workouts designed to get you through a whole month!
Nutrition
Nutrition is a very personal subject. I think it is important that something that works for some is not going to work for others and it is important to find out what works for you in your life at that time. It could change with the seasons, it could change with jobs, it could change because you get board. I do believe that ultimately it comes down to burning more calories than you take in. I also think that vegetables are important in almost every diet. I think there are exceptions but any diet that gives you enough protein, fiber, and fats is fine by me.
There are a lot of different strategies for this, and I will look at the pluses and minuses of all of them. There is no perfect diet for everyone, we want to guide you through trying these diets, making sure there are healthy forms of them. I have my own way of eating that I have found made me feel good while offering the calorie deficit, and it is pretty easy to prepare. The number one thing I recommend is to have a plan. Doesn't have to be a detailed every gram of food weighed out plan but something as simple as I am going to have eggs and toast for breakfast, a big salad for lunch, a protein shake for an afternoon snack, and some grilled chicken sweet potato and broccoli for dinner with a hot chocolate in the evening for a late snack. That is actually what I eat most days, and having a go to meal is the way I have helped simplify things for myself.
When it comes to changing nutritional habits it will take time, take small steps, start by trying to plan a few healthy meals a week or cutting out calories from beverages. Small changes over a longer period of time will yield much better results than trying to radically overall your life.
Mental Health
I think losing weight is mostly mental, a lot of programs look at the nutrition and exercise but fail to look at the mental side of things. Going through losing weight is an emotional roller coaster. Old comforts need to go away, and that can be challenging. If you were anything like myself food was a friend, always there for comfort or if I was bored. I found that by meal prepping and not having any food in my house was a great way of dealing with eating for comfort or out of boredom.
I personally enjoy setting goals, I set a goal to hike the long trail, and failed :-D, I have a tendency to set very ambitious goals and sometimes I don't get there. It is something that I am ok with, if you are a person that would like to set easier goals to make sure you succeed is a very valuable thing to know about yourself. We will work on setting goals that work for you and provide accountability and support if you reach your goal or not!