You know it’s true, we all wanna look good naked. Yes, health should always be at the forefront & I stand firm in my belief if you focus on health everything else will fall into line.

You may have resolved to make this the year you finally start, & hopefully stick with an exercise program or nutrition approach, but you’re fighting an uphill battle if you don’t shift your vow into truly making a LIFESTYLE change. 

It’s all too easy to give up after a few weeks & lookin around the gyms after the January rush, come February you see the same people there as before & most newbies drop off. The OG’s know what’s up!

So how to turn your determination into action you can sustain for more than 30 days? There are no secrets. In Beth Dutton fashion, to be blunt, at some point, you must get off your tush & take action. No one can do it for you.

To help you get started towards truly making this your year of change, here are fitness tips to feeling & looking good naked!

1. Set Clear Intentions

Write down your ultimate physique &/or health goal & how you’d like to look/feel. Include weight, body fat, any mental or physical improvements you’d like to see. Anything goes here. 

2. Make Time

Work up to 60 minutes of physical activity each day. That doesn’t mean beating the crap out of your body 7d/wk, but strive to get some kind of activity & routine down — even if it’s a walk with your dog, walking after meals, working out 3 days a week, etc. If you’re new to fitness, start with a 20 minute session 5-6 d/wk, two 15-minute sessions or three 10-minute sessions to help you become acclimated. Work your steps up to 10k/day.

3. Do What You Enjoy
Weights & lifting are one of the best ways to make significant physical changes to your body. Unfortunately, not everyone enjoys lifting. The most important determinant of long-term success with fitness is how much you enjoy an activity. Choose something that makes fitness fun & keeps you consistent! Explore new exercise classes and activities to determine which you prefer. As a beginner, almost anything you choose will be challenging, but gains will be made starting your very first week.

4. Surround Yourself With a Supportive Community & Accountability

Train with a friend who has similar goals. Join a group class at your gym. Try CrossFit, F45, Orange Theory, Spin, etc. You’ll be far less likely to skip your workout & it’s also more motivating when you workout with a group & push each other. You’re also less likely to cut your sessions short. People who choose healthy lifestyles will engage in behaviors that will impact you. Similarly, if your friends are just the opposite, they’ll likely reinforce the wrong kinds of behaviors.

5. Avoid Comparison to Others

Instead, compare yourself to YOU. If you make every week better in some way than the preceding week, you’re moving forward & making progress. Aim to improve yourself vs last year’s version of you. It’s hard for any of us to feel good about ourselves when we try to measure up to more advanced athletes who may have been training for a decade or more. What makes these people champions is they focus on what they need to do & who they need to be to get what they want every single day. They stayed consistent, created a lifestyle they love, & kept going.

6. Make Mistakes & Be A Forever Student

Experiment! It’s the only way to figure out what works, what doesn’t, what you like & what you don’t like. Try different classes, different diets, track your food, get a mentor, get a coach, invest in a trainer or nutritionist. An easy way to get inspired & increase your knowledge of fitness, training, & nutrition is to commit to researching each day. There are tons of free resources via the web, YouTube, Podcasts, Social Media, etc.

7. Learn to Be Patient AF

Many individuals will drop out of their training or nutrition program because they’re not seeing results fast enough. However, physiological adaptations occur incrementally. You most likely won’t see much, if any, improvement from one week to the next, but you surely will over 90 days. That’s why you should make a commitment of at least 3 months when starting any diet or exercise program.

8. Rise, Grind, Then Shine

Work out in the morning before the rest of the day gets in your way. Bonus: morning workouts boost your energy & confidence for the rest of the day! Get up 20 minutes earlier & knock out some of those steps. Sleep in your gym clothes or set your clothes out in the morning to make it easier. Set your coffee on auto brew so it’s fresh & ready. Caffeine helps!

9. Get Up & Move During the Day

Sedentary jobs are associated with greater risk for cardiovascular disease, not to mention weight gain. Incorporate some kind of movement every 30 minutes or so at work. Set a reminder on your phone, walk after meals, park further away, walk to lunch, take the stairs, walk on calls, just keep moving.

10. Get Sunshine

Get outside in nature as much as you can. Sunshine is vital to healthy vitamin D levels & walking in nature helps lower stress levels. Try Red Light Therapy. You can get a small portable one for your home. You can read all about my experience here in this blog, complete with a 20% discount code for EMR TEK: lilbitoffit20

Benefits include:

* Reduces oxidative stress
* Reduces inflammation & joint pain
* Increases muscle recovery
* Increases collagen production & tightens skin
* Reduces fine lines & wrinkles
* Increases hair growth
* Increases overall energy & vitality
* Increases wound healing, great for skin conditions
* Improves memory & vision quality
* Increases testosterone production
* Improves sleep & can aid in fat/weight loss

11. Reduce Eating Out & Alcohol

You consume more total calories when you eat out, & many of those calories will be empty, in the form of sugary beverages like pop & alcohol, & desserts. You won’t be tempted to indulge during a weak moment if you’re eating at home & no junk food or temptations are present.

12. Make Protein the Focus of All Meals

Undereating + over exercising = bone loss, muscle loss, & a hot metabolic & hormonal mess for women especially. We underestimate the protein we need, especially if we’re active. It’s all about that repair & regrowth of muscle mass & recovery that build a healthy, lean physique. We need protein for “tone” & if we’re not careful when we lose weight, we’re actually losing muscle instead of fat. For most, .8-1.2g of protein/lb of body weight or goal weight if you have more to lose (or even 1.5g/lb for some more petite, leaner, active women) is appropriate. Choose what’s right for you. Try to get at least 30-50g of protein per meal.

13. If You Consume Carbs, Choose Slower-Digesting Carbs Over Fast-Digesting

Slower-digesting carbs such as veggies, brown rice, whole grains, oats, sweet potatoes, & quinoa provide more sustained energy throughout the day & don’t spike your insulin as much. Fast-digesting carbs like sugar, white bread, candy, crackers, pancakes, bars, juices, baked goods, & most prepackaged stuff can spike blood sugar levels & increase the insulin response. Save these for your post-workout meal, when your body can use the extra carbs to replenish fuel stores if you must have them.  And don’t forget to keep sugary juices & drinks in check!

14. Set Eating Windows & Routine Meal Times

Routine meal times & some kind of food boundaries are helpful for most. Try fasting, which isn’t a dirty word. It simply means periods of not eating. Fasting 12-16hrs overnight would suffice for most. Nix late night eating & snacking in front of the tv. Set routine meal times. We should not be snacking in between meals. If you find you’re hungry in between meals, you’re most likely not eating enough food, especially protein &/or fat. Meals should keep us satiated for at least 3+ hours. Track your food if you don’t know. I use MyFitnessPal.  Awareness is a super power!

15. Realize Huge Muscles & Ripped Abs Don’t Equate To Being Fit & Healthy

Fitness is about more than big muscles & ripped abs. Flexibility, cardiovascular fitness, muscular strength & endurance, & body composition are elements in determining how fit & healthy you really are. Realize there are specific activity & exercise regimens for each one of them. This goes back to tip number one, define your goals, create a system & plan accordingly.

16. Start With Simple Total Body Workouts

One of the simplest ways to ease into a weight workout is to do a total body workout 3x/week with a day of rest in between for recovery. A total body workout hits these major muscle groups: glutes, quads, hamstrings, chest, back, shoulders, triceps, biceps, & core. Choose one exercise for each muscle group (multi joint exercises hit multiple body parts), training every other day. Examples: bench press, shoulder press, squat, deadlift, rows, pull-ups, push-ups.

17. Build Upon Your Workout Routine As You Gain Experience

As you gain experience in the gym, start adding more exercises and sets (volume) for each body part for better overall development. Rather than just doing longer workouts, start dividing your training into a split, such as push muscles (chest, shoulders, triceps) one day, pull muscles (back, biceps) on another, and legs on a third. Given the greater overall volume you do each session for those individual muscle groups, you’ll also need a longer recovery session before repeating that workout again.

18. Prioritize Strength Training & Use Cardio As A Lever For Fat Loss

To lose body fat, you need to burn more calories than you consume. Doing cardio is one way to widen the caloric deficit. But not all cardio strategies are created equal & more is not always better. Weight training is an essential component of weight loss. Muscle is a metabolically active tissue, meaning it burns off loads of calories all day long, even when you’re at rest. To build as much muscle tissue as possible, or even to keep it when dieting, train with moderately heavy weights in the 6-12-rep range. And stick with the multi joint exercises for the majority of your movements.

Studies have also shown that intense, moderately heavy lifting of this sort has the greatest effect on keeping your metabolism elevated for as long as 24 hours after your workout has ended. That significantly adds to the total number of calories burned!