Small Progress is Still Progress

As I’ve said in almost every blog post I’ve put up, fitness is progressive. It would amaze
you the amount of people that come to me, especially this time of year, with these
larger than life goals they have for themselves. Something like I want to lose 100
pounds this year. Definitely a doable goal, but do you have any idea how hard a goal
like that is? That would mean over the year you would have to burn 350,000 calories.
You would have to lose an average of eight to nine pounds a month. And, you would
have to not hit any weight plateaus throughout the year. That’s including the months
that you have holidays and vacations, if you take those. These same people will be
down in body fat at monthly weigh ins, but when they see their scale weight has only
dropped three or four pounds they’re unhappy about it.

​I’m going to be brutally honest with you. Fitness is hard. If it were easy I wouldn’t have
a job and you wouldn’t be reading this blog post. I think too many people negate the
fact that any forward movement is something you have to fight for. Let’s say you go
from doing absolutely no activity to working out two to three times a week. After a
couple months you step on the scale and you dropped ten pounds. Awesome! But,
think about all the activity you had to do to lose that ten pounds. If you are a 180
pound person you would have to run 250 miles to lose ten pounds at a twelve minute
pace, all while not overeating at all. Does that sound easy to you? Didn’t think so! Now
obviously no one is going out and running 250 miles in one trip, but you get my point.
Weight loss is HARD. Now, let me drop even more knowledge on you. According to the
energy gap theory every pound you lose causes you to. burn eight less calories a day.
So the next ten pounds you try to torch is going to burn even slower and you’re going
to have to work even harder. Don’t get too upset though there is a solution.

Be happy any and all progress that you make. Every minute you spend in the gym is
getting you closer to your goal. Every time you make a healthy meal choice you are
getting closer to your goal. Every time you lift a new weight you haven’t before, you are
getting closer to your goal. Every time you lose and inch or drop a pound you are
getting closer to your goal. The thing is, fitness is a journey, and it’s a very personal
journey. What the journey has in store for you is completely different than anyone else
around you. We all deal with different struggles. We all have different incomes. We all
have different amounts of time. We all have different levels of motivation. But, the
person who loses 100lbs in a year and the person who loses 100lbs in five years have
still both lost 100lbs. The destination is the same, but the journey is different.

So, basically what I’m saying is you have to look at every piece of forward progress as
a step closer to the goal you are working towards. I would rather have one small win
every day than one big win every month Even if you only lost a pound this month that’s
still one pound closer to your goal. There’s nothing wrong with big goals. Personally, i
think that big goals make you work harder. But, you also have to leave yourself some
room for being human. Work hard, enjoy life, and celebrate every win you have no
matter how small it may seem.