Keeping on Track:
Tips on staying motivated to work out
Looking to get fit, American COLE SIRUCEK turned to Ultimate Performance Singapore (UP), which offers personal training and body composition coaching with a no-nonsense approach. Four months into his multi-weekly training with UP personal trainer Ryan, he’s still going strong.
What are your fitness goals for 2020?
I want to get my body used to holding between nine and 11 percent body fat with a total weight of 178 to 182 pounds (around 80 to 82 kilograms). It’s one thing to reach this level once and another thing to build a habit of staying in this range. My goal is to spend three quarters of 2020 within these targets.
How do you stay inspired to work out?
I have a great coach! I feel great after the workouts and I’m making real progress.
How do you remain motivated to eat healthy?
I feel good when I eat well. I feel bad when I don’t. Building this body awareness and sensitivity is critical. Your body is a biological sports car of sorts; it needs to be driven to perform well. If you don’t train with weights or perform in other venues of athletic performance you don’t have a baseline to compare. This is what allows the gradual decline of health to set in. No one wants poor health; they just forget what it is like to feel good. And they often attribute poor health to age when it has far more to do with deconditioning and lifestyle.
What’s the best way to get yourself to exercise even when you don’t feel like it?
Don’t give yourself a choice. Some days are harder than others, for sure, but this is life. Don’t fight it; embrace the pain as part of the process and not as something to be avoided. This is all positive pain; it’s good for you! If you reframe the pain in a different way, it stops being something to be afraid of and avoided. It then becomes much easier to deal with.
The same goes for eating. Do you eat to live or live to eat? These are all simple decisions if they are seen in the proper context with clarity. Your health is one of the most important things in your life. As a matter of fact, it’s the basis of your life. How can a rational mind not take the necessary actions to optimise one’s health?
Need some healthy eating inspiration? UP’s CEO Nick Mitchell has released The Ultimate Performance Cookbook. See page 154 to learn more.