So you’ve failed to hit your fitness goal. Now what?

YOU probably had the best intentions of getting fit before Summer - and then totally failed. Here’s what you need to do.

I don’t know about you, but I was hoping to look like Natasha Oakley by the time Summer rolled around. Picture: John Appleyard

THE start of March saw me lacing up my sneakers and mapping out the ultimate bikini body lifestyle for myself.

Fast forward to early December, and we’re a couple of weeks out from full blown summer — so strapless dresses, shorts and *shudder* swimwear season — and let’s just say, despite largely sticking to my plan, things have, well, not quite shifted as much as I’d like.

Working hard and failing to hit the goals you set for yourself can be an even tougher pill to swallow motivation-wise than simply failing to stick to your plans and seeing the inevitable lack of weight loss.

At this stage of the proceedings, it’s pretty tempting to chuck down the weights and gym towel and swap them for Prosecco-laced icy poles and a nightly cheese and cracker board.

So here are the experts’ top tips for kicking things back into gear in the face of disappointing results.

1. FEEL THE DISAPPOINTMENT, THEN HIGH FIVE YOURSELF

Denying you feel, well, a bit sh*t, when you don’t hit a goal is a fruitless exercise — acknowledging your feelings allows you to deal with them, and honestly, if you don’t feel disappointed, then the goal probably isn’t that important to you, or you know you haven’t done the work.

However, once you’ve had your Bridget Jones opening-scene-with-the-bottle-of-vodka moment, it’s time to look at the changes you have made and celebrate them.

“Quite often with any new gym program or routine, we are very focused on the end result, and we forget about all the little achievements we are making along the way,” says Kristy Oliver, personal trainer and owner of KO Fitness.

“An important way to stay motivated is by celebrating the small steps you have taken and things you have changed in your lifestyle.”

Maybe you didn’t lose those 10kg’s in 10 weeks that you had hoped to — but you can now run for 10 minutes without stopping, or you can do 10 push ups on your toes, or perhaps you have made positive changes to your nutrition that you have adapted into a new healthy lifestyle. High five that shiz.

Or maybe you can balance on a ball and look at your attractive personal trainer. #goals

2. TRACK YOUR PROGRESS

Want to make sure you know exactly how much progress you’ve made next time you need a motivational pick me-up? Oliver says the best way to track this is through a fitness journal.

It may be somewhat clichéd, but there’s a reason personal trainers are gung-ho about tracking, and Glen Dreier, personal trainer and owner of Prestige Fitness, says it’s a dish best served often.

“I recommend taking some form of measurement weekly or fortnightly. You could take photos and or measurements, or if your goal is fitness as well as weight loss focused, a time trial or specific workout routine you can complete once a month to see if you beat your last time could also work,” he says.

This is especially helpful with longer term goals like my own — had I mapped out how much I needed to lose by month, and tracked weekly, I would have noted earlier that I wasn’t likely to hit the end goal when I expected, and could have adjusted either my plan or my expectations sooner.

3. GET SPECIFIC

While I’ve moved on from my younger belief that taping a picture of Gisele Bündchen to the fridge and aiming ‘for that’ counts as a fully thought out goal, that doesn’t necessarily mean a goal is as fully thought out as it could be, and this can make the world of difference.

Because this is totally realistic, right?

“Goal setting is by far the most important part of motivating yourself and keeping yourself on track — a goal gives you something specific to move towards,” says Oliver.

“If you’re not getting the results you’re expecting, take a look at your plan, and make sure you’ve made S.M. A. R. T goals. This means they are specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-based,” says Oliver.

4. PHONE A FRIEND

Finding a training partner can create one or two factors that will help you kick things up a notch, without necessarily adding more work to your fitness plan — friendly competition and the fabulously distracting fun factor, says Dreier.

“Look for someone with the same goals and someone you can have a laugh with — a good banter goes along way by taking your mind off what you’re actually doing,” he says.

“Team environments such as group training also bring out the fun in exercise, and a bi-product I see all the time in a well structured group setting is the competitive instinct kicks in and drives you to work harder,” he says.

If working out with others truly makes you grimace, then look for other ways to get more fun into your fitness, to create the distraction that helps you work out harder without realising it.

Adding music to your workout can be an easy way to achieve this — research conducted at Brunel University has shown listening to music while you exercise could increase your endurance by up to 15 per cent.

5. CALL IN THE PROFESSIONALS

If you’ve put in your very best efforts most of the time, you’ve stuck to a pretty specific plan with SMART goals, and you’re still not seeing results, it could that you need to call in the professionals.

Even if you don’t like the idea of training with a personal trainer regularly, they can still help by watching your work out and assessing your plan to and identify tweaks you can make — or let you know what results are realistic based on continuing to work the way you are.

“Even just checking in with a trainer once a month to reassess your program will go a long way — correct programming, and moving in an effective and safe manner is vital to achieving your health and fitness goals,” says Oliver.

And for me? I’ve dusted myself off, created a month by month plan (stuck in the front of my new raining journal) and bought a skipping rope — I’m sticking with the gym for weights, but I’ve decided I prefer to boogie to Beyonce and skip in front of my fave music videos for cardio.

Gisele … I mean healthier me, here I come!