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What to do after a 12-week challenge? Don’t fall off the wagon and go back to old habits. Over the years as a coach, I’ve been able to observe what habits work best after a 12-week challenge to continue to build better health. Here I will show what habit works best for clients because long-term successful clients are doing these. I can personally witness this as I see them in real life during the week, smashing their goals and doing life well. 

The key to new changes hanging around long term is continuing to make everything you have learnt apart of your lifestyle. Everyone is different and has unique situations. Some wake up and take the dog for a walk, some wake up and get three kids ready for the school drop off, others wake up at 5 am in the morning and work a 12 hour day. These can be your excuses, or you can work around them.

Fight For Your Training Times.

Firstly PLAN when you’re going to fit in your training, this is essential. There are going to be times of sickness where you are better off to sleep in and recover. Other than that you have to fight to stick to your routine. Get to bed early and wake up, get that workout done or walk the dog, have a surf or run down the park. Once you get the movement done for the day, you will not only feel better but you will have mentally ticked that box off in your head leaving you feeling accomplished. Fight for your time to put your health first.

Focus On Mobility

Mobility & Stretching is normally last on the list of priorities, or you only do this when you’re injured. Keeping flexible keeps you injury free and able to train long term. If you don’t stay mobile, it is going to stop you somewhere down the track. You’re going to get lower back pain or may bust your knees if you don’t’ keep flexible through your hamstrings. One day inflexibility is going to stop you, and you could be out of training. A person might decide that you are going to start running, but their body is tight leaving them with a pulled calve muscle. They may begin squatting in the gym, and your back isn’t ready for it so you get a sore back. Even having a surf, doing 3-4 stretches, so your body is warm to keep you injury free. Mobility will allow you to continue training long term and will prevent roadblocks down the track.

Learn How To Cook

This one is my personal favourite. We have gone through phases of fast and easy meal preps that come in packets. Now we are coming back to cooking our own flavoursome meals, still very fast but with a lot more nutrition and a lot less of what we used to have in the past. It is essential that we learn how to cook good food. Long term it is crucial that you know how to choose good food, cook it up correctly and provide your bodies with the fuel it needs. Correct foods will give you the energy to train hard tomorrow in the gym or recover well. Experiment with new foods. Jump over to Uber Shape Nutrition, we have lots of good food ideas on Instagram and Facebook. Naturally, you can’t buy good food that ticks all the boxes.

Sleep

Sleep is vital for recovering and keeping our stress hormones down, while also getting the most for the whole day. Some people are in a stage of life with small children that may vary your sleep; this is just a part of your life periodically. If you can control your sleep, it’s crucial that you do. Turn off social media or the tv earlier to calm the brain down. Getting the 6-8 hours that you need is essential to longevity. Some of us can run off less sleep, and some need more, that determines our individual make up of our bodies. Get the sleep you know your body requires and wake up the next day fresh. Proper rest and sleep will give you a stable recovery, so then you can feel good and train hard tomorrow.

If you are about to come off a 12-week challenge or about to start a challenge, it is important to remember the above four main points for integrating back into your life. Keep firm with your new habits and hold on tight to the new lifestyle you want to lead.

Do 12-week challenges work? They all start out the same. The first 2-3 weeks you see amazing results nutritional changes and higher training loads with results that kick butt. Once the halfway mark is hit, the body starts to adapt to the new eating and training changes, and then you start to plateau. The results begin to slow, which is very normal.

For the highly organised and motivated person (10% of us) yes, absolutely a 12-week challenge works. The halfway, slow down period -this is just a new challenge. This personality will make it work and see excellent results.

However, for the other 90% of us that feel good based on their results, disappointment kicks in. Results start to slow causing motivation also to decrease. Training can drop off, secret snacks creep in and results start turning backwards. Before the person knows it, the 3-6 weeks of hard work and amazing life changes have gone and so have the results. Sometimes we then try and get back on track by jumping back to the original plan of the first two weeks. Sadly this usually ends up in a second failed attempt, before realising that they are worse off then when the challenge began.

So what is the answer to getting good results? It is important to pick wisely as the stats show that 95% of people that lose weight, eventually regain it. If you are in the 10% and you know if you are, start on a challenge, get the results you are after and are capable of maintaining. However, for the other 90% which is most people, the best way is the ‘Habit base approach’.

Habit base approach

The Habit base approach is by far my favourite as a trainer with 12 years experience. When a client starts with this approach, it is always a win. They know their boundaries and are creating a new lifestyle, by selecting a new healthy habit to put into their lives every fortnightly check-in.

The key to making a habit base approach work is by keeping it simple. Choose a habit you would like to change the most. Mine, for example, at the moment is drinking water to keep me hydrated before my big race in 5 weeks time.

I leave a note on my kitchen bench with water written on it. Every time I have a glass of water, I give myself a mark. This is a rewarding moment, as everytime I get a tick, it’s like I’m giving myself a compliment that I have done what I wanted to do. At the end of the day, I can see all the marks and feel like I have accomplished my goal. It takes at least 14 days to create a habit, so nail the first then select a new one to start.

What’s your healthy habit?

What is the first habit you could change to improve your health & lifestyle? Sleep, so maybe a goal of going to bed at 9 pm? Eat breakfast every day? Drink a glass of water first thing in the morning?

Don’t change everything at once, trust yourself and trust the process. Choose one thing and apply it for two weeks. Do it correctly, succeed and move onto the next habit or you will set yourself up for failure. The habit base approach isn’t a quick fix; it is a lifestyle change. A quick fix for most usually ends up in a more extended fail period, with add-ons. However, when you look back in a year, it will be a sweet moment.

So what is the best option for you?

You could be in the 10%, so let’s get you started on a challenge to integrate you into a healthier lifestyle.

If you do fall into the 90%, where you know a lifestyle change will work better or you have failed at challenges, then the habit base approach is for you. You might have 30 habits that you want to change over a year period (being realistic) and don’t know where to start. We want to help you. Come and see me, or one of our coaches, and we will help you select a habit.